2nd Grade - Gateway 2

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the criteria for scope and sequence clearly delineate an intentional sequence in which phonics skills are to be taught, with a clear explanation for the order of the sequence. 

Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2 delineates a suggested intentional sequence for the teaching of phonics skills. The Master Lesson Guide explains the order in which phonics lessons should be taught. The teacher references The Fountas and Pinnell in Literacy Continuum for specific Letter-Sound relationships, Spelling Patterns (which include phonogram patterns such as: VC, VCe, VCC patterns; vowel phonogram patterns in single syllable words; double consonant patterns in multisyllabic words), Word Structure, and Word Solving Actions. Although Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2 cites studies supporting explicit teaching of phonics skills, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the sequence of phonics. 

Materials clearly delineate a scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction and practice to build toward application of skills.

• Comprehensive Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Guide Grades PreK-8, it identifies a progression for teaching Letter-Sound Relationships (LSR), Spelling Relationships (SP), Word Structure (WS), Word-Solving Actions (WSA) in Grade 2. On pages 26-83, the progression is sequenced on an instructional chart as the following: consonants, vowels, and letter-sound representations. Within each of the categories of phonics, behaviors and instructional language is provided to pinpoint specific standards and expectations.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 48-50, #1-9, there are nine LSR lessons. Students learn to:
• Recognize and use ending consonant sounds sometimes represented by double consonant letters.
• Recognize and use medial consonant sounds and the letters that represent them.
• Recognize and say consonant clusters that blend two or three consonant sounds.
• Hear and identify long vowel sounds in words and the letters that represent them.
• Recognize and use long vowel sounds in words with silent e.
• Contrast short and long vowel sounds in words.
• Recognize and use y as a vowel sound.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 50-52, #10-17, there are eight SP lessons. Students learn to recognize and use phonograms with a VC pattern, a short vowel sound in single-syllable words, a VCe pattern, ending with a double consonant, and ending with VCC. 
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 52-56, #18-31, there are 14 WSA lessons. Students learn to:
• Use a study routine to spell a word.
• Use known words to spell an unknown word.
• Attempt to spell an unknown word.
• Identify words that end the same and use them to solve unknown words.
• Recognize the sequence of sounds to read a word or word part.
• Use knowledge of letter-sound relationships to monitor word-solving accuracy.
• Recognize and use onsets and rimes to read words.
• Identify words that have the same letter pattern and use them to solve an unknown word.
• Break a word into syllables to decode manageable units.
• Add or remove consonant clusters or digraphs to the beginning or end of words.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 56-57, #32-36, there are four WS lessons. Students learn to identify syllables in words with three or more syllables and to recognize and use compound words.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 61-62, #47-52, there are six SP lessons. Students learn to recognize and use phonograms with ending consonant clusters, with double vowel, and with vowel combinations.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 62-65, #53-63, there are 11 WS lessons. Students learn to recognize and use ending -s, -ed, and -es.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 66-68, #68-76, there are nine LSR lessons. Students learn to:
• Recognize and use two consonant letters that usually represent one sound at the end of a word and that represent one sound in the middle of a word.
• Recognize and use middle consonant sounds sometimes represented by double consonant letters.
• Recognize and use consonant clusters at the end of a word.
• Recognize and use consonant letters that represent two or more different sounds at the beginning of a word.
• Recognize and use letter combinations that represent long vowel sounds.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 68-71, #77-86, there are 10 WS lessons. Students learn to:
• Recognize and use plurals that add -s to words that end with a vowel and y.
• Recognize and use plurals that add -es to words that end with a consonant and y.
• Recognize and use plurals that add -es to words after changing the final f or fe to v.
• Recognize and use irregular plurals that change the spelling of a word.
• Recognize and use the suffixes -er and -est to show comparison.
• Recognize and use the suffixes -er, -or, -ar, and -ist to form a noun.
• Recognize and use open and closed syllables.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 71-72, #87-90, there are four LSR lessons. Students learn to recognize and use letter combinations that represent long vowel sounds, that represent unique vowel sounds, and that represent two different vowel sounds.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 72-73, #91-93, there are three SP lessons. Students learn to recognize and use phonogram patterns with a long vowel sound in single-syllable words and with vowels and r in single-syllable words. Students learn to understand that some two-syllable words have a double consonant in the middle or at the end.
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, page 73, #94, there is one LSR lesson. Students learn to recognize and use vowel sounds with r. 
• Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, page 75, #99-100, there are two WS lessons. Students learn to recognize and use closed syllables and prefixes.

Materials do not contain a clear research-based explanation for the order of the phonics sequence.  

• Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, page 3, states, “We have identified nine areas of learning about phonics, spelling, and word study; for each area of learning, lessons are provided in this book. The continuum is based on research in language and literacy learning; we have asked linguists, researchers on literacy education, and many teachers to provide feedback on the phonics and word study section. We found surprising agreement on the knowledge needed to become an expert word solver.” 
• Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, pages 2-3, the materials generally cite researchers to support the need for explicit teaching of phonics skills identified in the nine areas of learning about phonics, spelling, and word study. 

Phonics instruction is based in high utility patterns and/or common phonics generalizations. For example, Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, students learn phonograms that end with a double consonant, and phonograms with VCC, consonant clusters or consonant digraphs.

Patterns and generalizations are carefully selected to provide a meaningful and manageable number of phonics patterns and common generalizations for students to learn deeply. For example, Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, students learn VCC, closed and open syllables, common letter combinations for long vowel sounds and different vowel sounds.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the criteria for materials include decodable texts with phonics aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and opportunities for students to use decodables for multiple readings.

The Fountas & Pinnell materials contain poems from Sing a Song of Poetry Grade 2 for students to read during Shared Reading in lessons of the Nine Areas of Learning about Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study. Poems are suggested in each lesson, but the poems are not consistently aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and do not consistently provide practice of the decodable element from the lesson. Poems are not necessarily used for repeated readings.

Materials include decodable texts to address securing phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Spelling Patterns 2, page 177-180, students to recognize and use phonogram patterns with a short vowel sound in single-syllable words. The lesson uses poems, “Milkman, Milkman” and “One Bottle of Pop” from Sing a Song of Poetry, as texts for practicing decoding words with the CVC pattern.   
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Word Structure 2, students are using highlighter tape to highlight words with two-, three-, and four- syllables in the poems “A, My Name is Alice” or “Fuzzy Little Caterpillar.” 
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Word-Solving Actions 2, students read the poem, “The Goat,” with the purpose of finding unfamiliar words and using knowledge of letter-sound order to solve the words.

Decodable texts contain grade-level phonics skills aligned to the program’s scope and sequence. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Spelling Patterns 15, page 232, students read the poem, “The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night” with the purpose of identifying words with the long-vowel sound pattern.  
• In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Word Structure 6, page 334, students read the poem “Going on a Bear Hunt” with the purpose of locating contractions.
• In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, page 436, Word-Solving Actions 3, students read the poem, “Over in the Meadow” with the purpose of finding unfamiliar words and using knowledge of letter-sound order to solve the words.

Materials include some detailed lesson plans for repeated readings of decodable texts to address securing phonics skills. 

• In Sing a Song of Poetry, page 14, there is a grid to help teachers think about how to use five poems as a text to revisit.
• A teacher could revisit “At the Seaside” to focus on:
• Phonogram Patterns: -en, -own, -ide, -ood, -ade, -ave, -ig, -and, -ore, -ole, -ike, -up, -in, -ame, -ill, -it, -ome
• Letter-Sound Beginning wh, wd, b, th, s, sp, g, t, m, sh, h, l, c, n.
• Letter-Sound Ending n, s, d, v, g, r, k, p, l, m, t, d.
• Rhyming words.
• Two-syllable words.
• A teacher could revisit “Betty Botter” to focus on:
• Phonogram Patterns: -ome, -ut, -aid, -it, -in, -ill, -ake, -an, -and.
• Letter-Sound Beginning b, s, sh, th, p, m, w, h, tw.
• Letter-Sound Ending t, r, m, d, s, f, n, l, k.
• Rhyming words.
• Two-syllable words.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the criteria for materials include decodable texts with high frequency words aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and opportunities for students to use decodables for multiple readings.

The Fountas & Pinnell materials include poems with high-frequency words for students to read during Shared Reading in the High-Frequency Words Lessons. The decodable texts/poems align to the scope and sequence of the Master Lesson Guide. While there are poems for high-frequency word reading in decodable texts, there are a limited number of prepared lesson plans for repeated readings of the poems. 

Materials include decodable texts that utilize high-frequency words. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 1, students read a poem called “River.” Students are to locate a few high-frequency words in the poem.
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 2, page 250, students read “Afternoon on a Hill,” which contains high-frequency words for students to underline. 
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 9, page 278, students read the poem, “Mr. Nobody” and underline the high-frequency words in the poem. The words that the poem contains that are high frequency are: I, as, who, that, was. 

Decodable texts contain some grade-level high-frequency/irregularly spelled words aligned to the program’s scope and sequence. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 5, page 262, students read the poems, “My Shadow,” and “Sing Your Way Home.” The high-frequency words students learn in the lesson are: close, how, each, happy, should. The high-frequency words in the text are: have, I, the, like. 
• In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 7, page 270, students read the poem, “Terrific Toes.” The poem has the following high-frequency words: I, have, they, goes, what. 
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 8, page 274, students read the poem, “Porridge is Bubbling.” The poem contains no high-frequency words from the lesson. 

Materials include some detailed lesson plans for repeated readings of decodable texts to address securing reading high-frequency words/irregularly spelled words in context. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Sing a Song of Poetry, page 14, there is a grid to help teachers think about how to use five poems as a text to revisit.
• A teacher could revisit “Golden Slumbers” to focus on high-frequency words: your, you, when, baby, do, not, and, I, will, a, then, is, are, must.
• A teacher could revisit “Make New Friends” to focus on high-frequency words: make, new, friends, but, the, one, is, and.
• A teacher could revisit “Miss Mary Mack” to focus on high-frequency w
• ords: all, in, with, down, her, back, she, mother, for, to, see, the, they, so, and, some, of.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the criteria for materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress of phonics (as indicated by the program scope and sequence). (K-2)

In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2 materials, there are opportunities to assess students’ skills in phonological awareness during Assess of the Letter-Sound Relationships, Spelling Patterns, and Word-Solving Actions Lessons. There are curriculum-based assessment protocols provided in the online resources, which are directly correlated to the nine areas of literacy instruction included in the program. Each assessment explains what is being tested, why it is important, and how to complete the assessment. These opportunities provide the teacher with information about students’ skills; however, there is no guidance or next steps based on assessment results provided for the teacher once the teacher has conducted the assessment. There are Extend learning sections the teacher can use if a student has mastered a content area or if a student needs reteaching. 

Materials provide resources and tools to collect ongoing data about students’ progress in phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Throughout the Letter-Sound Relationships (LSR), the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources: Assessment A: Saying and Identifying Beginning and Ending Consonant Sounds in Words, Assessment B: Matching Beginning Consonant Cluster Sounds with the Letters that Represent them, Assessment C: Matching Ending Consonant Cluster Sounds with the Letters that Represent Them, Assessment D: Matching Ending Consonant Digraph Sounds with the Letters that Represent Them, Assessment E: Matching Long Vowel Sounds with the Letters that Represent Them, Assessment F: Matching Short Vowel Sounds with the Letters that Represent Them, Assessment G: Comparing and Identifying Long and Short Vowel Sounds, Assessment H: Recognizing and Using Vowel Combinations, Assessment I: Individual Record (Beginning and Ending Consonant Sounds), Assessment J: Individual Record, Assessment K: Class Record (Beginning Consonant Clusters), Assessment L: Class Record (Ending Consonant Clusters), Assessment M: Class Record (Beginning and Ending Consonant Digraphs), and Assessment N: Class Record (Vowel Sounds).
• Throughout the Sound Patterns (SP), the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources: Assessment A: Reading Words with Phonogram Patterns, Assessment B: Writing Words with Phonogram Patterns, Assessment C: Reading and Writing Names, Assessment D: Individual Record (Reading), Assessment E: Individual Record (Writing), and Assessment F: Individual Record (Reading and Writing Names).
• Throughout the Word-Solving Actions (WSA) set of lessons, the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources: Assessment A: Sorting Names, Assessment B: Sorting Words, Assessment C: Using Known Words to Solve New Words, Assessment D: Solving Unknown Words and Monitoring Reading, Assessment E: Adding or Removing Consonant Clusters or Digraphs, Assessment F: Individual Record (Word-Solving Actions), and Assessment G: Individual Record (Reading Text).

Materials offer some assessment opportunities to determine students’ progress in phonics that are implemented systematically. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Letter-Sound Relationships, Connect to Assessment, the text states, “See related [optional] LSR Assessment tasks in Online Resources.”
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Letter-Sound Relationships 1, during Assess, the text states, “You may wish to use Letter-Sound Relationships Assessment A, I, or J.”
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Spelling Patterns, Connect to Assessment, the text states, “See related [optional] SP Assessment tasks in Online Resources.”
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Word-Solving Actions 1, during Assess, the text states, “You may wish to use Word-Solving Actions Assessment A, B, C, D, F, or G.”

Multiple assessment opportunities are provided regularly for students to demonstrate progress toward mastery and independence with phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Letter-Sound Relationships 16, page 141, during Assess, the teacher checks whether students are spelling words with c and ch conventionally in their writing.
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Spelling Patterns 8, page 203, the teacher notices if students can sort words by the VCC pattern.
• In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Word-Solving Actions 3, page 435, the teacher writes a word students are unlikely to know and have the students read the word. The teacher is to listen for the correct sounds in the correct order.

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with some information of students’ current skills/level of understanding of phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Letter-Sound Relationships 23, page 169, during Assess, the lesson lists assessment opportunities:
• During shared reading and guided reading, notice whether children can quickly locate and read words with vowels followed by the letter r.
• Examine children’s writing for evidence that they are beginning to represent r-influenced vowels accurately.
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Spelling Patterns 17, during Assess, the lesson lists three assessment opportunities:
• Notice whether children use what they know about the sounds associated with the double consonant pattern to solve words when they are reading.
• Dictate a few words with the double consonant pattern for children to write.
• You may wish to use Spelling Patterns Assessment A, B, C, D, E, or F.
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Word-Solving Actions 5, page 443, during Assess, the lesson lists three assessment opportunities:
• Notice children’s ability to take words apart while reading text.
• Show children a list of four or five new words and observe their ability to separate them into onset and rime and then to read the whole word.
• You may wish to use Word-Solving Actions Assessment C, D, F, or G.

Materials do not genuinely measure students’ progress to support teachers with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in phonics.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the criteria for materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress of word recognition and analysis (as indicated by the program scope and sequence). (K-2)

The Fountas & Pinnell Grade 2 materials contain assessments for word recognition and analysis in the Online Resources as well as assessments in the 100 lessons. Assessments within the lessons are administered at the end of lessons. Throughout the High-Frequency Words lessons, the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources to use over the course of the year: Assessment A (Reading High-Frequency Words) and Assessment B (Writing High-Frequency Words). For word analysis, there are Word-Solving Action assessments provided such as Assessment A (Sorting Names), Assessment B (Sorting Words), Assessment C (Using Known Words to Solve New Words), Assessment D (Solving Unknown Words and Monitoring Reading) and Assessment E (Adding or Removing Consonant Clusters or Digraphs). Each assessment provides recommendations for what teachers should analyze once the assessment has been administered. However, there are missed opportunities for assessments to provide the teacher with instructional guidance about next steps for all students. 

Materials regularly and systematically provide a variety of assessment opportunities over the course of the year to demonstrate students’ progress toward mastery and independence of word recognition (high-frequency words or irregularly spelled words) and analysis. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 1, during Assess, the text lists three assessment opportunities:
• Notice how quickly the student can recognize high-frequency words when they are reading.
• Observe the extent to which the student can independently write high-frequency words quickly and accurately
• The teacher may wish to use High-Frequency Words Assessment A, B, or C. 
• In the Word-Solving Actions Online Assessment C, the teacher selects five to ten words from the Word List. The student reads each word or attempts to read each word. The teacher asks the student to say what helped the student read the word. The teacher notes what letters, letter clusters, and word parts the child represents. 
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 1, page 245, during Assess, the teacher is asked to notice how quickly students can recognize high-frequency words when they are reading. The teacher observes to the extent that students can independently write the words. It is suggested that the teacher might want to give online assessment A, B or C. 
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, High-Frequency Words 4, page 257, during Assess, it is recommended that the teacher notices how quickly a student recognizes high-frequency words when s/he is reading. 

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information concerning  students’ current skills/level of understanding of word recognition and word analysis. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In the online Ready Resources: Assessment: High-Frequency Words Grade 2, the text suggests selecting the second 200 high-frequency words list and working up to the 500 high-frequency words list, asking the children to read the list of words the teacher has selected. The teacher is to notice the number of high-frequency words read accurately.
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, Word Structure 1, pages 311-314, during Assess, the text recommends that teachers use Word Structure Assessment A, B or J to assess students' ability to recognize and use syllables in words with double consonants. In this example, the teacher is asked to analyze the number of words in which the child can hear and identify syllables, particularly one-, two-, three-, or four-syllable words the child can segment into the correct number of syllables.
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade 2, there are three curriculum-based protocols for assessing Spelling Patterns: reading words with phonogram patterns, writing words with phonogram patterns, and reading and writing names.
• In Spelling Patterns 12, pages 217-220, the text suggests that the teacher may want to use the Spelling Assessment Patterns A, B, C, D, E or F. 
• After administering the assessment, the text recommends that the teacher analyze the student’s: 
• number of patterns located
• specific patterns located
• number of patterns written accurately
• specific spelling patterns written 
• number of spelling patterns read accurately 
• knowledge of letter-sound relationships
• patterns partially known

Materials do not support teachers with instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students to progress toward mastery in word recognition and word analysis. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In the online Ready Resources: Assessment: High-Frequency Words Grade 2, advice is provided in the Why Use It section of the assessment. It says: “This assessment will tell you the extent of the children’s knowledge of high-frequency words as well as the particular words they know. Their substitutions will tell you what word parts they notice.”

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the criteria for assessment materials include publisher-produced alignment documentation of the standards addressed by specific questions, tasks, and assessment and assessment materials clearly denote which standards are being emphasized. 

In the Fountas and Pinnell materials, standards alignment documentation is not available for formative and summative assessments. The assessments are aligned to the topics listed in the Nine Areas of Learning about Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study. There is limited documentation or correlation provided for specific lessons to indicate how the lessons align with standards. The documentation provided includes some example lessons that correlate to the foundational skills standards.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the criteria for materials regularly provide extensions and/or more advanced opportunities for students who read, write, speak, or listen above grade level. 

In the Fountas & Pinnell materials, all students participate in Teach, Apply, and Share for instruction and practice. No advanced opportunities are provided for students to work on while the teacher is providing reteaching to students who have not acquired the skills being taught. Each lesson contains Extend opportunities, which can provide advanced students with the opportunity to learn grade-level foundational skills at greater depth. In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Lessons Grade 2, page 30, the materials describe Extend as “If children need more experience, you can repeat the lesson format using these suggestions for variation, different examples, or more challenging activities.”

Materials provide some opportunities for advanced students to investigate grade-level foundational skills at a greater depth. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Lessons Grade 2, Letter-Sound Relationships 6, page 102, during Extend, there are two opportunities listed:
• Add spellings of long vowel sounds to reinforce the principle: e.g., ay (gray, stray), ow (show, flow), and ui (fruit, bruise). 
• Ask each child to choose one long-vowel pattern. Throughout the day, have children look for words with the pattern they chose and write them on a list sheet or in their word study notebook. Encourage children to share their findings during a group share at the end of the day.
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Lessons Grade 2, Spelling Patterns 3, page 184, during Extend, materials suggest students play Concentration by matching CVC or VCe word pairs. 
• In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Lessons Grade 2, Word Structure 1, page 314, during Extend, materials recommend the teacher repeat the lesson with other words that have a double consonant in the middle or to post a chart for children to list words that fit the pattern. Students should have a goal of finding 50 or 100 of the words. 

There are no instances of advanced students simply doing more assignments than their classmates. Activities presented as challenge activities are all additional assignments located in the Extend Learning section of each lesson plan.