2nd Grade Report Overview

The From Sounds to Spelling Grade 2 materials 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. The materials include a logical phonics scope and sequence that includes common phonics generalizations and high-utility patterns. The materials include systematic and explicit phonics instruction. However, the materials do not include opportunities or guidance for the teacher to give corrective feedback. The materials include opportunities to practice decoding and encoding words with common and newly taught sound and spelling patterns. Students have the opportunity to learn the spelling pattern and practice it almost every day within the five-day lesson cycle through the use of whiteboard/dictation and worksheets. The materials include decodable texts that align with the weekly phonics skill; however, there is no explicit instruction on how to use these texts. The materials include assessment opportunities for phonics that occur during the Placement Test at the beginning and end of the year, as well as the End-of-Unit Assessments. There are no interim assessments throughout the units to regularly and systematically assess students. In addition, there is minimal evidence of guidance for the teacher on what to do with the evidence once it is collected to help students progress toward mastery in phonics.

Students learn new high-frequency words every week beginning in Week 5. Students learn two to six new words per week with explicit instruction and modeling; however, materials do not consistently include teacher modeling of the spelling of high-frequency words that includes connecting the phonemes to the graphemes. The materials include opportunities for students to learn about the different syllable types and practice reading words with one or two syllables based on the type. Throughout the program, students take an end-of-unit assessment that measures their progress in word recognition, but there is no evidence of word analysis assessment. In addition, interim formative assessments throughout the program do not exist. The program’s end-of-unit assessments measure students’ ability to read and spell high-frequency words, but there are no assessment items that examine students’ level of performance with word analysis.

The materials do not include explicit, systematic, evidence-based instruction in oral reading fluency or assessment opportunities for fluency.