The materials reviewed for Center of Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria that most questions, tasks, and assignments are text-based, requiring students to engage with the text directly (drawing on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text).

Within the Making Meaning component of the series, students answer text-based questions. Students are required to review their reading in order to answer questions relating to the text. In the Writing about Reading section, students are asked to respond about what they learned from the text.

In the Making Meaning section, students are asked a variety of text-dependent questions.

• In Unit 2, students listen to The Three Little Pigs. Students turn and talk to discuss: “What happens to the second little pig?” and “Why do you think the wolf is friendly to the third pig?” Students also hear the text Jamaica Tag-Along in the first week of Unit 2. Students answer questions such as “How is Jamaica feeling?” and “Why does Jamaica want to go along and play basketball with her brother?”
• In Unit 5, Week 1, students read The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau and answer: “What inference can you make from this illustration about how the three judges in gray coats are feeling?” and “What inference can you make about how the three judges are feeling when the painting says ‘QUACK!’?”
• In Unit 6, Week 2, students hear The Art Lesson by Tomie De Paola, and students are asked, “What did you learn about Tomie as a child?” and “What advice did Tomie get that helped him improve his drawing?”
• In Unit 9, students hear Me First! and answer: “Would you want to be friends with Pinkerton? Why or why not?” Students read the same text the next day and answer questions such as, “What do you think he needs to learn?” and “At the end of the story, what is Pinkerton like?”

In the Writing about Reading component, which is a component of Making Meaning, students write about a text using evidence.

• In Unit 4, Week 3, Day 2, students write about what they inferred about Lilly from the Chester’s Way and what clues in the passage helped them to make their inference.
• In Unit 7, Week 3, students are asked to write about what is similar and different about the books, Butterflies by Teresa Wimmer and Spinning Spiders by Melvin Berger.

The materials reviewed for Center for Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials providing frequent opportunities and protocols for evidence-based discussions (small-group, peer-to-peer, whole-class) that encourage the modeling and use of academic vocabulary and syntax.

The materials in Grade 2 provide opportunities for students to share their thinking about texts in each lesson of Making Meaning. Students engage in Turn to Your Partner and Think-Pair-Share cooperative structures. Guidance and modeling are provided. Teachers are provided guidance on implementing evidence-based discussions through the use of video clips and prompts within the teaching materials. The Making Meaning component has a Vocabulary Teaching Guide which utilizes vocabulary words from the stories students have been reading. There are multiple opportunities and protocols for evidence-based discussions across the whole year's scope of instructional materials.

At the beginning of each Making Meaning unit, students are assigned a new partner. Students engage in partner structure and direct instruction. Opportunities to practice the structures before actually using them are provided. The Turn to Your Partner structure is taught in Unit 1, Week 2, Day 1. Think-Pair-Share is introduced the next week. Direct instruction and practice is included as well as an opportunity to reflect on the structure when asked, “What is one thing you want to keep in mind today to help your partner conversation go well?”

• In Unit 1, Week 2, Day 1, students listen to the text, Sheila Rae and discuss with their partner what has happened so far.
• In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 2, students listen to Babu’s Song and discuss: “What happens in this part of the story? Were you surprised by what happens? Why? Turn to your partner.”
• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 2, students Think-Pair-Share the question, “What is the most important thing to remember from the part you just heard?”

The Grade 2 vocabulary program consists of 30 weeks of lessons as well as ongoing review activities. Students work with the words from the text the week after the students hear the text. For example, in Making Meaning, Unit 2, Week 2, the teacher reads aloud the text, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and then a week later students work on the vocabulary words from the text. Students are provided prompts to discuss the words. For example in Week 26 of the Vocabulary Teaching Guide, students are prompted with, "When I hear the word _______, I think of _______ because _______."

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials supporting students’ listening and speaking about what they are reading (or read aloud) and researching (shared projects) with relevant follow-up questions and supports.

Students are provided with a variety of opportunities to discuss with a partner their understanding of texts read aloud to them or about the shared writing projects they are completing. They are given multiple opportunities to listen and discuss with peers what they are reading, writing, and listening to as well as with the whole class. Follow-up questions and supports for speaking and listening are found throughout materials. There are times throughout the year where the teacher is explicitly told to model proper speaking and listening, and students discuss what they see and hear.

In the Making Meaning component of the materials, students are given multiple opportunities to turn to a partner to discuss what they read, supporting both their listening and speaking. Examples include:

• In Unit 2, Week 3, students listen to and then discuss The Three Little Pigs with their partner.
• In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 1, students hear multiple poems including “Poetry Bees” and then answer questions such as "How do you picture bees?" with their partner. In this lesson, and in many others, there are directives to teachers to support students with their speaking and listening. For example, in this lesson the Teacher’s Manual says, “Facilitate a brief discussion about how they will make sure each partner has a turn to talk.” After working together to speak about the text and answering questions, students also have to answer questions such as, “What did you and your partner do to make sure you each got a turn to talk?” in order to facilitate speaking and listening skills.
• In Unit 7, Week 1, students have the opportunity to work with their partner to discuss what the author means when he writes, "Female earwigs are very good mothers."
• In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 3 after independent reading, students are asked to share questions they had prior to reading the book, questions that were answered in the book, and new questions students had after reading some of the text. This discussion begins in pairs and eventually moves into a whole-group discussion.
• In Unit 9, Week 4, Day 2, students are asked to "use Think-Pair-Share to discuss the following question: 'What are some words besides sad that you could use to describe how Big Al feels in this part of the story?'” They work in partners to complete this activity.

In the Being a Writer component of the materials, students are asked questions after listening to the story. Examples include:

• In Unit 2, Week 2, students listen to I Will NOT EVER Eat a Tomato and discuss with their partner how the story reminds them of their own life.
• In Unit 4, the Teacher's Manual explicitly says that “socially, the students learn discussion prompts to help them respond to and build on one another’s thinking. They ask for and give help and feedback respectfully.” Students then hear the stories, Polar Lands, Polar Animals, and Polar Regions, and discuss the texts. Students are given prompts for actively speaking and listening such as I agree with... because... or I disagree with... because....
• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 4, students explore writing friendly letters to tell about themselves. On this day they are preparing to write letters to a person of their choice. “Explain that today the students may write friendly letters to anyone they choose. Give the students a moment to decide whom they will write their letters to. Then use Think-Pair-Share to discuss: What do you want to tell this person in your letter? [pause] Turn to your partner. What do you want to ask this person in your letter? [pause] Turn to your partner.”

In the Being a Reader component of the materials, students are regularly required to speak and listen about the shared reading. Students have opportunities to demonstrate listening carefully as well as reflect on what they did to do be a good listener. The Vocabulary Teaching Guide also provides opportunities for students to speak and listen while using prompts that teach students the appropriate way to answer and respond to a question.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials including a mix of on-demand and process grade-appropriate writing (e.g., grade-appropriate revision and editing), and short, focused projects, incorporating digital resources where appropriate.

The materials for Grade 2 offer a variety of on-demand and process writing, and incorporate technology components. Students often work with partners to share, review, edit, and revise their writing. There are some open days throughout the program that allow teachers to embed some quick on-demand writing assignments, which allows them to confer with students. There are also some independent writing times when no prompt is provided. Students have multiple opportunities to revise their writing, and add details, illustrations, and proofread for punctuation and spelling.

Students are frequently given opportunities for on-demand writing. Students are given opportunities to complete on-demand writing tasks both individually and with a partner. One partner activity is in the Being a Writer component, in Unit 5, Week 1, Day 1, where students write letters in pairs to the teacher. One example of independent writing is where students write about toys that come to life in Unit 3, Week 2, Day 3. Students also have on-demand writing opportunities when responding to a text. For example in Unit 7, Week 1, Day 1, students write their own opinions about whether they think Alex’s mother should allow Alex to adopt the iguana after hearing the story “I Wanna Iguana."

There are also opportunities for students to engage in process writing. Students revise and edit their writing weekly. For example in Unit 2, Week 3, Day 2, students write and tell more about a pet. They learn about conferencing with each other and giving feedback. An example of process writing is in Unit 1, Week 6, Days 2 and 3 where students begin writing a scary story; then they read their story to a partner and add details to their writing This type of routine gets more sophisticated throughout the curriculum. In Unit 7, Week 2, students are writing about arguments for or against having a pet. On Day 1, they choose an opinion and share reasons to support those opinions. On Day 2, they explore opening sentences that state opinions. On Day 3, they give reasons and use temporal words to connect reasons and opinions. On Day 4, students write closing sentences that restate opinions.

Opportunities to use technology are also embedded in the curriculum. Students are given opportunities for digital storytelling. It is suggested that the stories be shared online, emailed to parents, or stored for others to view on the computer, tablet, or other device. In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 1, students work together to choose a setting and characters from a digital storybook application in order to create a digital storybook. They take turns developing a plot for the story and recording their portion of the story. In Unit 3, Week 4, Day 4, students publish their writing online.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials providing opportunities for students to address different text types of writing (year-long) that reflect the distribution required by the standards.

The materials in Grade 2 provide multiple opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply different genres/modes/types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards as evidenced in the Being a Writer module. Students have opportunities to practice and progress through the writing lessons in order to learn about the three writing genres throughout the grade.

In Being a Writer, narrative writing is found in Units 1-3. Students are asked to list a short sequence of events that include details. By Unit 3, students are introduced to the fiction genre and include details, actions, feelings, and thoughts into their writing. They recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, and need to include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings as well as provide a sense of closure.

Expository writing is taught in Unit 4 of Being a Writer. Students hear, read, and discuss nonfiction texts. Students write questions about polar lands and animals. Students then do some research and write about the polar lands and polar animals, including opening and closing sentences. Students are also exposed to expository writing in the Writing about Reading section of the Making Meaning component. For example, in Unit 4, Week 2, Day 3, students write about what they inferred from the illustration and what clues the illustration had that helped them make their inferences.

In Unit 7, students are introduced to opinion writing. They discuss a variety of samples of opinion writing before writing their own. They are expected to write many different opinion pieces on varying topics. By the end of the unit, they are asked to write a letter to a parent convincing them of a belief the student has. In Week 2, students are writing about arguments for or against having a pet. They begin by choosing an opinion, share reasons to support these opinions, as well as incorporate opening and closing sentences. Students have additional opportunities for opinion writing in the Writing about Reading section of Making Meaning. For example, in Unit 7, Week 2, Day 3, students have to write their own opinions about which insect is the most interesting and why.

The instructional materials reviewed for Center for the Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials including explicit instruction of the grammar and conventions standards for grade level as applied in increasingly sophisticated contexts, with opportunities for application both in and out of context.

Language standards are addressed throughout lessons within Being a Reader, Being a Writer, and Vocabulary Teacher Guide (Making Meaning). The instructional strategies of the lessons include teacher modeling, Think-Pair-Share, and Turn to Your Partner. Students are supported in their acquisition of grade-level grammar and convention standards through teacher questioning and the students having opportunities to speak with a partner before recording their responses. Students use Handwriting Notebooks to record their handwriting lessons. Students also are presented with visual materials to help aid in language and convention standards acquisition such as sentence strips, note cards, and vocabulary picture cards.

Materials include explicit instruction of all grammar and conventions standards for the grade level, and instruction is provided in increasingly sophisticated contexts.

Students have the opportunity to use collective nouns. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Unit 3, Week 1, Day 2, at the end of the lesson there is an extension opportunity for using collective nouns. The teacher asks students questions such as: “What do we call a group of wolves or dogs? What do we call a group of fish? What do we call a group of birds?”
• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 9, students practice circling and filling in collective nouns in sentences.
• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 11, students again practice filling in missing collective nouns in sentences.

Students have the opportunity to form and use frequently-occurring irregular plural nouns. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 8, students practice writing the plural form of words such as sheep, goose and child.
• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 11, students practice with irregular plural nouns such as fish and men.

Students have the opportunity to use reflexive pronouns. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 20, students are provided sentences such as, “We take _______ to the funhouse.” Students must select from the words in the word box the reflexive pronoun that completes the sentence. Students are also provided with sentences where they must circle the correct reflexive pronoun to complete the sentence. For example, “My brother and sister go to the fair by (themselves, himself).”
• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 24, students are again provided practice with adding in the missing reflexive pronoun to complete sentences. For example, “I taught _______ how to skate.”

Students have the opportunity to form and use the past tense of frequently-occurring irregular verbs. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 14, students fill in missing irregular verbs from a story such as got, gave, sat, told, said, went, found, and kept.
• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 17, students need to replace present tense verbs with the correct past tense form. Irregular verbs used in the story include: sat, was, got and found.

Students have the opportunity to use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Unit 3, Week 3, Day 2, when they are reading the story Ducky. When discussing colors in the book, the teacher is instructed: “You might point out that the words yellow, green, blue, red and pink are adjectives. Explain that an adjective is a “word that describes a noun (or a person, place, animal, or thing).”
• In Being a Writer, Unit 3, Week 3, Day 2, students work on adding more details to their writings, specifically colors and descriptive words. “What colors could you add to your story to help your readers imagine what things look like? [pause] Turn to your partner.”
• In the Being a Reader, Week 15, Day 2, students have additional practice with adverbs when they learn all about the suffix –ly.
• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice Book, Lessons 21, students learn about adjectives through using the five senses and later apply that knowledge to sentence analysis. “Display the next 'Adjectives' activity (WA15). Have the students listen for adjectives as you read the paragraph aloud. Then return to the first sentence and ask the students to identify the adjective in it, as well as the noun it describes. (big; pickle) Confirm the answers by clicking big and pickle to reveal the labels adjective and noun. Point out that an adjective often comes right before the word it tells about.”

Students have the opportunity to produce, expand, and rearrange complete, simple, and compound sentences. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice Book, Lesson 5, students are provided the prompt: “Write two compound sentences about something you collect or would like to collect.”
• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice Book, Lesson 19, students must answer the question, “What do you like to do at the playground? What do you bring with you? Write two sentences.”
• In Being a Writer, Unit 1, Week 2, Day 2, students practice writing sentences as a class about a science experiment that they have completed.
• In Being a Writer, Unit 1, Week 5, students practice writing silly animal sentences such as: “Kangaroos don’t jump on trampolines.” and “Bats don’t play baseball.”

Students have the opportunity to capitalize holidays, product names, and geographic names. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 11, students practice capitalizing proper nouns. Students must circle the proper noun in the sentences; "My favorite holiday is New Year’s Eve." "We celebrate in Salem, the city where I grew up." "We go to a diner called Sadie’s Super Suppers."

Students have the opportunity to use commas in greetings and closings of letters. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 26, the teacher models where commas should be in a letter. Then the teacher displays the “Commas in Greetings and Closings of Letters” activity and reads the letter aloud. The teacher asks, “What is the greeting in this letter? (Where should we add a comma to the greeting?)”

Students have the opportunity to use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently-occurring possessives. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 27, the teacher explains that a contraction is a short way to write two words. "The teacher says 'I have' and asks what is a shorter way to say that, then the teacher models writing I’ve. Explain that an apostrophe takes the place of the letter or letters that are dropped to form the contraction.”

Students have the opportunity to generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Unit 3, Week 2, Day 1, students work on spelling polysyllabic words and adding them to their writing by listening to syllables and approximating the spelling of each syllable. “What words did you spell by listening to their syllables today? Choose one of those words and tell us what you did to spell that word.”

Students have the opportunity to determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on Grade 2 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Skills Practice, Lesson 23, students learn about formal and informal uses of English through learning about audience and purpose. “Explain to the students that in this lesson they will learn how to tell the difference between formal and informal English. Tell the students that formal English is language they should use in their schoolwork and when writing or speaking to an adult. Informal English is language to use with friends or family.”

Materials include opportunities for students to demonstrate application of skills both in and out of context. For example:

• In Being a Writer, Unit 5, Week 2, Day 1, students learn how to punctuate a friendly letter since the unit is about writing friendly letters. The teacher shows a model letter and asks the following questions: “What do you notice about the punctuation marks in the date? What do you notice about how the greeting is punctuated? What punctuation is used in the closing?”
• In Being a Writer, Unit 6, Week 1, Day 4, students list Food Words based on the following question, which elicits adjectives: “What food did you imagine, and what words might you use to describe how the food looks, tastes, and feels?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Center of Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials, questions, and tasks directly teach foundational skills to build reading acquisition by providing systematic and explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle, letter-sound relationships, phonemic awareness, and phonological awareness (K-1), and phonics (K-2) that demonstrate a transparent and research-based progression for application both in and out of context.

Foundational skills are presented to address phonics and word recognition. The Word Study Instructional Strand includes an instructional focus where students develop an understanding of how English words are constructed through word sorts and weekly spelling practice. Differentiated instruction that includes phonics, decoding, and word analysis are incorporated in the Small-group Reading sets of the Being a Reader materials. These skills are taught in a logical progression that increases in difficulty throughout the year.

Lessons and activities provide students opportunities to learn grade-level phonics skills while decoding words (e.g. distinguish long and short vowel sounds, apply spelling-sound relationship on common words, decode two syllable words with long vowels). For example:

• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 1, Day 3, the teacher reviews short vowel sounds and then reviews words that students will be sorting. Some of these words include: trap, cut, hop, drip, catch, stitch, at, pot… Students read the words chorally. The teacher next introduces the sort. “Explain that one way to learn more about words is to find words that are the same in some way and to group them together. Tell the students that this is called sorting.” The class then begins to sort the words based on their short vowel sounds.
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 1, Day 3, the teacher reviews long vowel sounds. Then the students sort long vowel sounds based on words such as shake, these, slide, and cube.
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 2, Day 3, students sort words by vowel teams and record the ways they sort in their Word Study Notebook. “Sort by Spellings of the Long a Sound. Direct the students’ attention to the list and have them read say. Ask: Which spelling of the long a sound do you see? (a-y) As the students share, drag and drop the word under the appropriate category heading. Use this procedure to sort the remaining words. After all the words have been sorted, have the students read the words in each group together as a class.”
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 22, Day 3, students apply knowledge of syllables to reading longer words and listen respectfully to the thinking of others and share their own. Gather the class with partners sitting together, facing you. Ask and briefly discuss: “How did it go doing this week’s sort in Independent Work?” Display the “Week 22, Day 3 Words” activity ( WA3). Point to and read aloud mistake and insect. Ask: “Where did you divide these words into syllables yesterday?” As the students respond, draw a dot between the syllables. Review that when there are two consonants between vowels, the word is often divided between the consonants.
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week, 17, Day 2, students learn to decode words with the suffixes of -less and -ful. “Tell the students that they will read more words with the suffixes -less and -ful; you will show them a word and they will say the suffix and then read the word.” Examples of words student decode are: useful, fearful, helpless, lifeless.

Materials have a cohesive sequence of phonics instruction to build toward application. For example:

• Skills grow in difficulty over the course of the year. At the end of the year in week 29 this is evidenced by how much more independent students are in their word sorts and by the level of information students now know about prefixes and suffixes.
• Through Word Study, Grade 2 students learn short vowels, long vowels with final e, complex vowels, r-controlled vowels, inflectional endings, alphabetizing, consonant l-e syllables, open and closed syllables, syllabication strategies, prefixes, suffixes, and compound words. During small-group reading, Grade 2 students learn and apply single consonants, short vowels, digraphs, consonant blends, inflectional endings, long vowels, diphthongs, polysyllabic words, and compound words.

The materials reviewed for Center of Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria for instructional opportunities are frequently built into the materials for students to practice and gain decoding automaticity and sight-based recognition of high frequency words. This includes reading fluency in oral reading beginning in mid Grade 1 and through Grade 2.

The instructional materials provide opportunities for students to purposefully read on grade level texts through small group reading instruction, independent reading rotations, and IDR (Individualized Daily Reading). During Being a Reader and Making Meaning, students are taught reading strategies such as self-monitoring. Students learn high-frequency words from Small Group Reading both isolated and embedded within the given text and practice the strategy of read, write, and reread to help promote automaticity of words.

Multiple opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to purposefully read on-level text. For example:

• INDEPENDENT READING IN GRADE 2: During Individualized Daily Reading in Grade 2, the students spend up to 20 minutes a day reading books independently at their appropriate reading levels. An IDR section appears at the end of each lesson, except in the case of independent strategy practice lessons. IDR can follow the day’s lesson, or the teacher can schedule it during another time of the school day.
• In Making Meaning, Unit 3, Week 3, Day 1, during Individualized Daily Reading, students read their own books for 15-20 minutes silently. “Encourage the students to create mental images as they read.”
• In Making Meaning, Unit 9, Week 1, Day 1, during Individualized Daily Reading, students are directed to read fiction and nonfiction texts for the next four weeks. “Ask the students to preview their texts and think about what they are wondering and learning as they read.”

Opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials and SIPPS for students to demonstrate sufficient accuracy, rate, and expression in oral reading with on-level text and grade level decodable words. Multiple opportunities are provided for independent reading. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Small Group, Set 6, Day 1 of New School, students learn how to fluently read dialogue. “Provide the students with examples of nonfluent and fluent reading of dialogue.”
• In Being a Reader, Small Group, Set 7, Day 2, students learn about reading fluently as it relates to a character’s feelings. “Explain to the students that thinking about what the characters say and how they might say their words helps reader read fluently, or smoothly, in a way that sounds like talking. Tell them that readers use their voices to show how characters are feeling, such as worried, excited, angry, or surprised.” Students also practice echo reading.
• In SIPPS Plus and Challenge, fluency practice and IDR consist of reading practice for a minimum of 30 minutes each day. Once a week, the teacher is to check accuracy, rate, and comprehension.
• According to SIPPS Challenge:
• “Fluency practice. Students with accuracy levels at or above 95 percent but whose rates are below 60 correct words per minute read quietly aloud to themselves. The purpose is to achieve automaticity, which involves reading most single-syllable words quickly and effortlessly.”
• The fluency materials include a Fluency Record sheet and reading log sheet. CCC recommends trade books. Grade 3 students may read books written specifically for their grades. “One source of books for reading practice is Center for the Collaborative Classroom’s Fluency Practice Libraries.
• Determining accuracy and rate are explained in SIPPS.

Materials support reading of texts with attention to reading strategies such as rereading, self-correction, and the use of context clues. For example:

• In Making Meaning, there are optional lessons to support and supplement the Individualized Daily Reading. These lessons focus on conferring, self-monitoring, using word-analysis, and fluency. “Each day’s IDR instruction establishes a clear purpose for independent reading (for example, practicing self-monitoring or visualizing to make sense of a text).”
• In Being a Reader, Small Group, Set 10, Day 1, “Tell the students that it is important for readers to understand and remember what they read. Explain that one way readers can check to make sure they understand is to stop a few times as they read and ask themselves, “What did I just read?” The teacher then goes on to model Self-Monitoring.
• In Making Meaning, Unit 2, Week 1, Day 1, students are introduced to self-monitoring strategy and apply it to their independent reading. Introduce self-monitoring. Remind the students that reading books that are just right for them helps them grow as readers. Explain that one way good readers know if a book is just right for them is by pausing while they are reading to think about how well they understand what they have just read.”

Students have opportunities to practice and read irregularly spelled words. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 4, Day 4, attention is given in whole group instruction to the word live, as it can be read with both the long vowel sound and the short vowel sound. They consider it an ‘outlier’ in this lesson as the focus is on i_e as a long vowel sound combination.
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 9, Day 1, students practice reading and sorting words with the inflectional ending -ing. “Tell the students that they will sort the words into two categories. One category will be words that have one consonant before i-n-g and the other will be words that have two consonants before i-n-g. Write the category headings smiling and hopping on the “Week 9, Day 1 Sort” activity (WA1). Underline ing, and draw a box around the single or doubled consonant that precedes the ending in each of the words.
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 25, Day 1, students learn about the schwa sound. Students learn to read, spell, and say father, almost, idea, over, under, away, ever, never.

The materials reviewed for Center of Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials, questions, and tasks providing systematic and explicit instruction in and practice of word recognition and analysis skills in a research-based progression in connected text and tasks.

In Grade 2, there are opportunities for practice in word analysis skills in connected texts and tasks. While word analysis skills are taught in the Being a Reader Small Group sets, not all students can access all of these texts over the course of the school year if the student’s assessment results place the student in earlier small group sets. Students can learn word analysis skills with connected texts and tasks through SIPPS Plus and SIPPS Challenge levels if SIPPS is taught whole class.

Materials support students’ development to learn grade-level word recognition and analysis skills (e.g apply spelling-sound relationship on common words, decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels, decode words with common prefixes and suffixes) in connected text and tasks. There are opportunities to read words in connected text and tasks. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Word Study Week 1, Day 3, students review short vowel sounds and the letter that corresponds to the sound. Students participate in a word sort with single syllable words that contain short vowels in the middle of the word.
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 5, Day 1, students review spellings of the long e sound. Students read the words and then sort the words based on spellings of the long e sound. “Direct the students’ attention to the “Spelling-Sound Chart” and point to the long e spellings on the chart. Point to the e_e spelling and tell the students that one way to spell the long e sound is e_e as in these. Write the word these where everyone can see it, and have the students read it aloud. Point out that a consonant spelling goes in the blank. In these the consonant is s.”
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 17, Days 1-3, students review the suffixes -er, -ful and -less. Students work with words such as helpful, helpless, careful, useless, slower and harder.
• In SIPPS Plus, Lesson 32, during Sentence Dictation, students listen to a sentence and then are guided word by word to determine the spelling of the word based on if the word is a decodable word or sight word.
• In SIPPS Plus Lesson 33, students read a selection called “First Plane to Fly.” The students are directed to read the selection quietly aloud to themselves and take their time to sound out hard words. There is decoding support provided for the teacher such as with the following words, the teacher should frame the parts: Wilbur, Flyer, further, sister, problems.

Materials provide some opportunities to read irregularly spelled words in connected text. Materials provide frequent opportunities to read irregularly spelled words in tasks. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 4, Day 4, students learn about the different ways to make the long i sound and sort words based on spelling patterns. Students also learn about outliers that can be pronounced in different ways (ex: live). “Point out that when the word is pronounced with a short i sound— /lĭv/—it does not rhyme with drive and five or with any of the other words in the sort. Explain that words that do not fit into any category are called outliers. Tell the students that when they sort words on their own, they may have one or two outliers. When they are recording a sort, they can write these outliers at the bottom of the sorting page.”
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 12, Day 1, students participate in a whole group word sort into alphabetical order. This word sort includes irregularly spelled words: earth, desert, ocean, island, water.
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 26, Day 4, there is an extension opportunity for students to use irregularly spelled words in writing. “Review that one reason writers spell words correctly is to make sure readers can understand and enjoy their writing. Think aloud about how one of the words reminds you of something that happened to you. Which of these words reminds you of something that happened to you? What is a story you could write about that? Turn to your partner. After a few moments, signal for the students’ attention and have a few volunteers share their thinking with the class. Encourage the students to use the spelling words and other words from the week’s sort in their writing.”
• In SIPPS Plus, Lesson 39, students read irregularly spelled words a text called “Dreams on Wheels.”
• In SIPPS Challenge, students learn to read irregular syllables in tasks.

Lessons and activities provide students opportunities to learn grade-level word recognition and analysis skills while encoding (writing) in context and decoding words (reading) in connected text and tasks. There are opportunities to read decodable texts during SIPPS Plus. Students can encode words during Guided Spelling in SIPPS Plus or Challenge. Lessons do not align or match between Being a Reader, Making Meaning, or Being a Writer. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 22, Day 1 students participate in guided spelling of compound words. (backpack, farmland, goldfish, hillside, rainfall, snowball, sunshine). On Day 2, students participate in reading two syllable words and dividing these words into their two syllables. Later in the day, the students complete a syllable sort - long vowel vs short vowel. On Day 3, students read multisyllabic words by dividing syllables between the consonants.
• In Being a Writer, Unit 6, Week 1, Day 1, students discuss rhyme in the poem “Boa Constrictor.” “Remind the students that some poems rhyme, or use words that sound alike, while others do not. Have the students open to Student Writing Handbook on page 21, where “Boa Constrictor” is reproduced. Explain that “Boa Constrictor” is an example of a poem that uses rhyme. Have partners read the poem together quietly and underline words that rhyme, or sound alike.”
• In Making Meaning, Mini-Lesson 7, “Discuss encountering longer unfamiliar words during independent reading. Learn word-analysis strategies for reading unfamiliar, polysyllabic words. Practice word-analysis strategies during IDR. Reflect on using word-analysis strategies.” Students also use the text “A Trip to the Zoo” in this lesson. As a class students also create a chart titled, “Things to Do When You Don’t Know a Word.” Strategies listed on this chart include, “Look for a prefix. Look for a Suffix. Look at all the letters in the word. Break the word into parts. Read each smaller part. Then put the parts together to read the word. Look for words you know inside the unfamiliar word. Ask yourself: Does the word sound right? Reread the sentence and look at any pictures. Ask yourself: Does the word make sense in the sentence?”
• In SIPPS Challenge, Lesson 8, students write polysyllabic words such as bubble. Students are guided in writing the word based on listening to the word in a sentence and then verbally identifying syllables before printing the word.

The materials reviewed for Center of Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials supporting ongoing and frequent assessment to determine student mastery and inform meaningful differentiation of foundational skills, including a clear and specific protocol as to how students performing below standard on these assessments will be supported.

The Grade 2 program provides the opportunity for the teacher to observe students reading with Individualized Daily Reading (IDR) assessments. Students read words to assess what has been taught in Word Study. During Small-Group Reading lessons, Day 3, there is a group progress note with questions for the teacher to use as they assess students’ reading. These opportunities do not include all grade level foundational skills.

The lessons within Being a Reader and Making Meaning are structured to provide students with application of foundational skills and provide additional support for teachers to guide students towards mastery of foundational skills. Through the small group reading portion, teachers are provided with lessons for differentiation of foundational skills. A Grade 2 teacher has access to sets 3-5 which come with assessments. As the students progress to sets 6-8, teachers have access to assessments. Materials provide formative and summative assessments the materials and placement test for teachers to know where to start students in small group reading sets.

The SIPPS Extension and Challenge levels are identified as developmentally appropriate for Grade 2. There are assessments in SIPPS Extension level for foundational skills such as SIPPS Assessment, which is used to group students for SIPPS. There are mastery tests and instructional self-checks. A teacher can monitor students fluency using Fluency Practice/Individualized Daily Reading.

Multiple assessment opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to demonstrate progress toward mastery and independence of foundational skills. For example:

• In Being a Reader, the teacher observes students reading using an Individual Reading Observation (IDR). These notes occur every other week in sets 3-5 and once or twice during each three-day sequence of lessons in Sets 6-12. The teacher documents if the student can read high-frequency words, decodable words, and polysyllabic words. The student is assessed as they self-monitor and students are assessed for fluency.
• In Being a Reader, spelling tests are provided in most weeks, 12-24 during Word Study to assess students as they spell eight words representing previous week’s instruction. During weeks 25-29, students are assessed spelling irregular high-frequency words.
• In the introduction portion of the Grade 2 Being a Reader teacher’s manual, a list of assessments for teachers to use throughout the school year is provided. For summative assessments teachers are provided with a Social Skills Assessment, Word Study Assessment and Spelling tests. The Word Study Progress Assessment description states, “A word list that individual students read aloud three times during the year allows you to monitor how each student is incorporating Word Study Strategies into his or her reading…”

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information of students’ current skills/level of understanding. For example:

• In Being a Reader, the teacher observes students reading using an Individual Reading Observation. These notes occur every other week in sets 3-5 and once or twice during each three-day sequence of lessons in Sets 6-12. The teacher documents if the student can read high-frequency words, decodable words, and polysyllabic words. The student is assessed as they self-monitor, and students are assessed for fluency.
• In Being a Reader Assessment Resource, Word Study Progress Assessment 1, given after 8 weeks, students read 26 words.
• In Being a Reader, In Set 10, Day 3, the lesson focus is on self-monitoring and self-correction. Teachers once again need to mark “All or Most Students, About Half of the Students or Only a few students,” in regards to the following questions: “Are the students able to talk about what they read? Are the students able to use illustrations to find clues about the meaning of unfamiliar words? Do they take turns talking and listening?”
• In SIPPS Extension and Challenge, there is a K-3 Placement Assessment which screens letter names, phonics, and sight words. There are also mastery texts in SIPPS Extension.

Materials support teachers with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in foundational skills. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Small-group Set 8, page 34, there are teacher notes provided to help students who struggle to read compound words. Questions are provided for the teacher to ask to support the students, “Do you see a part you know how to read in the middle of the word? At the end? What is it?” “Do you see a smaller word you know inside the word? What is it?”
• In the Teacher’s Assessment Manual, teachers are provided with whole group checklists to use to assess students. For example, in Week 10, Day 3 in the Grade 2 portion of the Assessment Manual, teachers are asked to check either, “All or most students, About half or most students or Only a few students” in regards to the following questions: Are the students able to generate ideas and start sorting? Do their categories make sense? Are they able to accurately record the sort in their notebooks? Are they able to label their categories?” Teachers are then given a list of questions to ask students who might be struggling: “What is alike about these two words? What other words might you group with these? Why did you decide to group these words together? How can you turn what you just told me into a name for the category?”
• Teachers are also provided with Group Progress Assessments to use for Small Reading Groups. For example, in The Assessment Manual,, Day 3, the lesson focus is on fluency and comprehension. Based on how the group does on the assessment, the teacher is provided the following suggestions to help students: “Support any student who struggles to read with attention to characters’ feelings by reteaching Day 3, Step 4, using pages 34-43 on “P.S I’ll Be Back Soon.”
• In Word Study, Week 1, Day 4, the class assessment for Word Study includes the the following suggestion based on assessment results: If many students are struggling, you may wish to compile a different list of final e words and repeat steps 2-5 in the day 4 lesson.
• In SIPPS Extension, if many students do not pass the mastery test, the teacher is directed to reteach the previous lessons. If only a few students are not passing the mastery test, the direction to the teacher is to provide extra practice for those students.
• In SIPPS Challenge, if many students do not pass the mastery test, the teacher is directed to reteach the previous lessons. If only a few students are not passing the mastery test, the direction to the teacher is to provide extra practice for those students.

The materials reviewed for Center of Collaborative Classroom Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials, questions, and tasks providing high-quality lessons and activities that allow for differentiation of foundational skills, so all students achieve mastery of foundational skills.

The materials provide high quality lessons in foundational skills throughout the school year. This is done through Being a Reader and Making Meaning. The materials provide teachers with opportunities for differentiation through small group reading sets. The Being a Reader Teacher’s Manual also provides numerous ideas for supporting ELL students, ideas to support students who were struggling with concepts and at times some extension activities that went along with the Shared Read Alouds. Skills are also repeated numerous times throughout the school year to help students build mastery and independence in foundational skills.

Materials provide high-quality learning lessons and activities for every student to reach mastery of foundational skills. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 8, instruction begins with a review of oi, oy, au and aw, which were taught in the previous weeks. Students then participate in a sort of words with /oi/ and /aw/. In Day 2 of the week, students participate in an open sort and are required to explain their sorting categories. In Day 3, students participate in ‘Build That Word’ where they use letter tiles to build the following words:
• Aw- straw, lawn, law, paw, claw, raw, draw
• Oo- pool, too, cool, fool, tools
• Oi- boil, coin, oil, coil

Students then participate in a Guided Spelling activity where they spell words that have /oo/ and /ou/: grew, loud, crowd, cloud, chew, too, cartoon. Independent Work this week includes Day 2 word cards to practice sorting and the “Build That Word’ letter tiles to practice building the words from the week.

• In Being a Reader, Week 2, Day 2, the class works on a “Ways We Have Sorted Chart”(a helpful visual of the chart is included) that covers ways the class has learned to sort words so far and includes items such as “By short vowel sound (short a, short e, short i, short o, short u. By long vowel sound (long a, long e, long i, long o, long u. By vowel sound (short, long).” The teacher informs students that as they learn new ways to sort they will continue to add to the chart.
• Teachers are also provided with Teacher Notes in the margins throughout lessons to further assist students.In Being a Reader, Week 3, Day 2, “If you have not already done so, you may wish to start a class list of homophones. You may wish to include some familiar homophones, such as there/their/they’re and see/sea, on the chart. Ask the students to notice words that sound the same but are spelled differently in their reading. Revisit the chart and add any examples that the students suggest.”

Materials provide guidance to teachers for scaffolding and adapting lessons and activities to support each student’s needs. For example:

• In Being a Reader, Small Group, Set 6, ELL support, Preview the Book: “In Set 6, you will ask the students to read the book prior to the small-group lessons. It may be beneficial for your students to practice reading the book aloud to you. Phrase-cued texts are provided for all the books in Set 6. If you find students struggle to read fluently, consider adding additional sessions specifically aimed toward fluency.”
• Teachers are also provided with helpful ELL vocabulary words throughout lessons to provide addition support for those students. In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 3 during a lesson on long o spellings teachers are provided with an ELL vocabulary box the instructs teachers, “English Language Learners may benefit from hearing additional vocabulary defined, including: loaf: bread that is not sliced. Mow: use a machine to cut down grass. Roast: cook in an oven. Throne: the chair a king or queen sits in..”
• In the Being a Reader, Teacher’s Manual on page xxvi, an explanation for Extending the Instruction is provided. Teachers are informed that there are two ways to do this in the Being a Reader manual, Extensions and Independent Work Connections. Teachers are informed that for Extensions, “These optional activities provide additional learning opportunities that extend or enhance the instruction in the core lessons.” For Independent Work Connections: “These optional activities are suggestions for integrating the instruction from weekly lessons in the current or subsequent weeks’ independent work areas.”

Students have multiple practice opportunities with each grade level foundational skill component in order to reach mastery. For example:

• Throughout the Being a Reader, Small Group Sets, students have multiple opportunities to practice foundational skills. As evidenced by the Being a Reader, Sets 6-12 Scope and Sequence, some examples of skills that come up again and again for students to practice:
• Self-monitoring and self-correcting - Set 11 - The Key Collection, Set 8 - Koalas, Set 10 - I Love Guinea Pig
• Reading/analyzing Polysyllabic Words - Set 6 - Ball Games, Set 7 - Jellyfish, Set 8 - Lightning
• Fluency (as it relates to paying attention to punctuation) - Set 9 - Not Norman, Set 6 - New School, Set 7 - Chameleon!, Set 8 - The Great Gracie Chase
• In Being a Reader, Word Study, Week 13, Day 1, an explanation is provided: Beginning in this week, the lessons that make up the Word Study week are sequenced differently than earlier lessons to accommodate a spelling test on Day 4. The spelling words, which are selected from the previous week’s sort, are introduced on Day 1. Then the students practice the words in independent word work during the week. The students will have repeated exposure to the words over two weeks, in the previous week’s sort and again in the Day 1.