2nd Grade Report Overview

The materials for Grade 2 partially meet the expectations for alignment to research-based practices and standards for foundational skills instruction.

The materials do not contain elements of instruction that are based on the three-cueing system for teaching decoding. Materials provide a scope and sequence of phonics skills; however, an evidence-based explanation for the order of the phonics sequence is absent. Materials contain opportunities for systematic teaching of phonics; however, the lessons do not consistently provide explicit instruction. Materials include blending and segmenting, but routines are inconsistent or defined for the teacher. The use of dictation is inconsistent across materials and there is no consistent routine explicitly modeled. Materials provide guidance in the modification section of the lesson plan but do not provide guidance for corrective feedback. The materials include spelling lists aligned to the scope and sequence and the focus for the week. Materials provide decodable texts aligned to the phonics focus of each week of instruction. The materials include formal assessments, Check-Ups, and Practice Pages for teachers to use in collecting ongoing data about students’ progress in phonics. Teachers are provided with information on how to analyze the results of assessments; however, limited information is provided to teachers to respond with follow-up phonics instruction or instructional adjustments to address phonics skills.

The materials include systematic and explicit instruction of high-frequency words within the SOS lessons. Lessons include teacher modeling of the spelling and reading of high-frequency words, which includes connecting phonemes to graphemes. The materials include student practice for identifying and reading high-frequency words in isolation and in context. The materials include explicit instruction in syllable types and routines, including opportunities to divide multisyllabic words. The materials contain two weeks of morphology analysis in the materials; however, those opportunities are not provided over the course of the year. The materials include regular and systematic assessment opportunities over the course of the year to demonstrate students’ progress toward mastery and independence of word recognition but not analysis. Most of the opportunities assess high-frequency words, regular and irregularly spelled words, while there are few opportunities to assess word analysis skills of decodable words. 

The materials include frequent opportunities for explicit, systematic instruction in automaticity and accuracy using phonics books and decodable texts. The teacher models how to read with intonation and expression, use expression based on end marks and punctuation, pause reading to take breaths, and read with a rhythm and consistent pace. Students have multiple practice opportunities for reading fluency through a variety of reading activities and settings in centers, such as reading to a teacher, to a book buddy (stuffed animal), to a classmate, or independently in centers. The materials provide limited guidance for corrective feedback. The materials provide seven unit assessments that assess oral reading fluency of connected text throughout the year. The materials also have periodic assessments for SOS words at the word fluency level. There are informal assessment opportunities throughout Step 6 as well. Assessment materials include limited guidance concerning automaticity or prosody and specific adjustments for instruction to support students based on the assessment scores.