2nd Grade Report Overview

The materials for Grade 2 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. The materials provide a clear, evidence-based explanation for the order of the phonics scope and sequence, which is intentionally ordered from simpler to more complex skills. Phonics instruction is based on high utility patterns and common phonics generalizations. Instruction starts with closed syllables and ends with reading two- to four-syllable words with split vowels. The materials provide appropriate pacing of phonics skills, which are taught daily in 15-20 minute teacher-led whole group lessons, 20-30 minute daily small group sessions, and 30-40 minute independent practice time. Student practice activities include isolated practice, practice in sentences, and repeated reading of a decodable text. Lesson 5 of any given week reviews phonics skills introduced and practiced during Lessons 1-4. The materials include systematic and explicit instruction in phonics with repeated teacher modeling. The materials contain spelling rules and generalizations aligned to the phonics scope and sequence, and these generalizations are taught in conjunction with reading words that follow these rules. The materials contain decodable texts with phonics aligned to the phonics scope and sequence. The decodable texts begin in Unit 1, with one every week until the final unit.

The materials include opportunities for systematic and explicit instruction of Heart Words (high-frequency words) with a consistent, explicit instructional routine. Online teacher guidance and lesson plans provide instructions for teachers on how to model reading and spelling Heart Words and in connecting phonemes to graphemes. The materials provide videos on the explicit instruction of Heart Words with connections of phonemes to the graphemes. There are five Heart Words taught each week for Units 1-20. The materials provide opportunities for students to read high-frequency words in isolation through the Heart Word Magic Videos and practice activities, including Look, Think, Say!, Pop-Up, 3-Up, and Read a Row. The materials provide decodable texts containing high-frequency words, which provide opportunities for students to read the words in context. The students have a template to write Heart Words and to mark the irregularly spelled part of the word. The materials provide opportunities for explicit instruction in syllable types and routines for decoding and encoding with opportunities to apply learning. There is also explicit instruction involving morpheme analysis, with inflectional endings and suffixes.

The materials include systematic instruction in oral reading fluency. The instructional routine includes the teacher modeling fluent reading, discussing how to address punctuation when reading, and strategies to address accuracy. The consistent fluency routine to develop oral reading fluency is used with phrases, sentences, decodable passages, and decodable texts. Practice opportunities for oral reading fluency are provided through decodable passages, phrases, and sentences in student workbooks. Guidance for Positive Corrective Feedback is provided within mini-lesson resources and in the appendices. The materials include systematic assessment opportunities through reading the passages and tracking accuracy. The materials contain multiple assessment opportunities with cold 1-minute reads of decodable texts corresponding to each unit, which includes a consistent routine that tracks students’ accuracy.