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Grade Two English/Language Arts Expectations

Reading Standard 1: Print-Sound Code

Students will demonstrate the ability to:

Phonemic Awareness

  • Apply knowledge of letters and sounds to decode words
  • Independently blend phonemes to make words

Reading Words

  • Automatically recognize approximately 250 words in reading

Reading Standard 2: Getting the Meaning

Students will demonstrate the ability to:

Accuracy

  • Independently read aloud up to unfamiliar Level M books with 95 percent or better accuracy for word recognition
    Fluency
  • Independently read aloud from up to unfamiliar Level M books previewed silently on their own, using intonation, pauses, and emphasis that signal the meaning of the text
  • Use the cues of punctuation as a guide in getting meaning and reading aloud fluently

Self Monitoring

  • Reread and/or read to the end of the paragraph if the text doesn’t make sense
  • Connect earlier and later parts of a text for meaning

Self-Correcting Expectations

  • Use syntax and word-meaning clues
  • Gather context clues from surrounding sentences
  • Derive new words through knowledge of words and word chunks
  • Check solution to a difficult word against the meaning of the text

Comprehension

  • Recognize and use organizing structures: table of contents, titles, chapter titles, index, glossary
  • Use different parts of the text: graphs, diagrams, illustrations
  • Recognize generalizations about text (for example, identifying appropriate titles or main ideas
  • Infer cause-and-effect relationships not stated explicitly
  • Compare the author’s observations to personal observations when reading nonfiction texts
  • Answer comprehension questions
  • Discuss how, why, and what-if questions about non-fiction texts
  • Make basic inferences or draw basic conclusions

Listening Comprehension

  • Discuss or write about themes of a book
  • Trace characters and plots through many events, perhaps those that are read on several successive days
  • Relate later parts of a story to earlier parts, in terms of prediction, themes, cause and effect
  • Identify story elements [character(s), setting, events, problem, attempts to solve the problem, solution]
  • Use background knowledge to make connections about the text

    • Reading Standard 3: Reading Habits

    Students will demonstrate the ability to:

    Independent and Assisted reading

  • Read daily and discuss reading with another student, a group, or an adult
  • Read at least 25 books per year, independently or with assistance: documented in reading logs, reading journals, or Accelerated Reader Program reports
  • Read daily a variety of literature
  • Read multiple books by the same author and be able to discuss differences and similarities
  • Reread some favorite books or parts of longer books, gaining deeper comprehension and knowledge of author’s craft
  • Read functional and instructional messages they see in the classroom environment
  • Read for the enjoyment of reading, recognizing themselves as readers

Being Read To

  • Listen to quality literature for a variety of genres which models the language and craft of good writing
  • Listen to, discuss, or respond daily to at least one text that is longer and more difficult than what can be read independently or with assistance

Discussing Books

  • Demonstrate comprehension during book discussions
  • Recognize genre features and compare works by different authors in the same genre
  • Discuss recurring themes across works
  • Refer to part of the text when presenting or defending a claim
  • Explain their interpretation based on personal experiences
  • Sometimes challenge another speaker on accuracy, logic, or inference
  • Ask other speakers to provide supporting information or details referring to the text
  • Politely correct someone who interprets their ideas incorrectly

Vocabulary

  • Notice and show an interest in understanding unfamiliar words in texts
  • Recognize an unknown word and use a variety of strategies to gain meaning
  • Use strategies to help identify the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary by using knowledge of word structure, base words, prefixes, suffixes, context clues, illustrations and diagrams, prior knowledge
  • Talk about the meaning of new words encountered in independent and assisted reading
  • Know how to talk about what words mean in terms of function, features, and category
  • Learn new words every day

    • Writing Standard 1 & 2: Habits, Processes, and Products

    Students will demonstrate the ability to:

  • Write daily
  • Generate content and topics and make decisions about which pieces to work on over several days
  • Begin to extend pieces of writing, for example, turning a narrative into a poem or turning a short descriptive piece into a long report
  • Solicit and provide useful feedback
  • Begin to independently reread, revise, edit, and proofread their work as appropriate
  • Take on elements of an author’s craft that the class has discussed in their study of literary works
  • Apply commonly agreed-upon criteria to assess their own writing
  • Polish at least ten pieces of work throughout the year
  • Begin to use an organizational structure
  • Exclude extraneous information
  • Communicate big ideas through facts, details, and other information using the Big6 research model
  • Use diagrams, charts, or illustrations as appropriate to the text
  • Provide a sense of closure to the writing
  • Provide a retelling
  • Write letters to the author telling their thoughts
  • Make a plausible claim about what they have read
  • Write variations on texts they have read
  • Make connections between the text and their own ideas and lives
  • Incorporate some literary language
  • Create a believable world and introduce characters using specific details and developing motives and moods
  • Develop story elements in reflective writing
  • Write in the first and third person
  • Begin to use dialogue
  • Use the writing process
  • Describe in detail the sequence to do or make something
  • Include relevant information
  • Use language that is straight-forward and clear
  • Use pictures to illustrate steps

Writing Standard 3: Language Use and Conventions

Students will demonstrate the ability to:

Style and Syntax

  • Use sentence patterns typical of spoken language
  • Incorporate transition words and phrases
  • Use phrases and modifiers
  • Use and develop further individual voice in their writing
  • Use varying sentence patterns and lengths
  • Reproduce sentence structures found in the various genres they read

Vocabulary and Word Choice

  • Use words from their speaking vocabulary, including words from reading and class discussions
  • Make word choices that reflect their growing vocabulary
  • Take on the language of authors
  • Make word choices on the basis of accurate meaning
  • Extend their writing vocabulary by using specialized or content-related words

Spelling

  • Produce writing that contains correctly spelled high frequency writing words
  • Correctly spell most words with regular word patterns such as CVC
  • Write phonetic text that usually can be read by the child and others
  • Draw on a range of resources to spell unfamiliar words, including strategies like segmenting, sounding out, and matching to familiar words and word parts
  • Automatically spell some familiar words and word endings correctly
  • Correctly spell most inflectional endings, including plurals and verb tenses
  • Use correct spelling patterns and rules most of the time
  • Use specific spelling strategies during the writing process
  • Engage in the editing process, perhaps with a partner, to correct spelling

Conventions

  • Use punctuation capitalization and other conventions
  • Capitalize their name, first word of a sentence, pronoun I and people’s names
  • Use end punctuation correctly
  • Approximate the use of quotation marks
  • Use capital letters and exclamation marks for emphasis
  • Use common contractions
  • Recognize paragraphs

Reference Materials

  • Use word book, dictionary, word wall, thesaurus, Spell-Check

Speaking/Listening/Viewing Standards 1, 2, & 3: Habits, Processes, and Products

    Students will demonstrate the ability to:
  • Talk about what they think, read, or experience
  • Explain or speak from another person’s perspective
  • Initiate and sustain a conversation with relevant exchanges
  • Begin to use comparisons and analogies
  • Confirm understanding by paraphrasing an adult’s direction or suggestions
  • Talk in small groups for collaboration
  • Talk in front of a group on a regular basis
  • Recite facts to confirm what has been memorized
  • Note and discuss author’s craft: word choice, figurative language, story elements, and character development
  • Compare one text to another
  • Begin to understand concepts and relationships within the text including sequence, cause and effect
  • Relate a story or information from nonfiction text to real-life experiences or prior knowledge
  • Begin to use information that is accurate, accessible, and relevant
  • Begin to use reasoning and information to determine fact or opinion
  • Follow instructions or directions in functional texts
  • Independently give a lengthy, richly detailed account in which the actual sequence of events is clear
  • Describe information and evaluate or reflect on it
  • Describe internal reactions as well as external events
  • Develop characters fully by clearly stating their goals and motivations, including resolution by the story’s end
  • Include quotations
  • Comment and reflect on how things were resolved
  • Begin to use multiple resources for information such as libraries, the Internet, and identified experts
  • Conduct firsthand interview
  • Give increasingly elaborate and extended descriptions of objects, events, and concepts
  • Begin to support opinions or provide specific examples to support generalizations
  • Give a short prepared speech or report
  • Listen to, comprehend and carry out directions with three or four steps
  • Give multi-step directions
  • Use visual aids
  • Participate in extended conversations, listening to arguments and solutions
  • Disagree with another person’s argument and begin to generate and promote alternative solutions to reach agreement
  • Collaborate by seeking out peers to solve problems, handling disagreements diplomatically
  • Attend to more challenging performances that go beyond entertainment or present unfamiliar material
  • Describe their reaction to a performance, giving details to support opinions
  • Draw from a rehearsed repertoire to give a brief performance, such as reciting a poem or famous speech
  • Conduct and/or make lengthier presentations to the class or take part in full-length performances in front of larger groups or unfamiliar audiences
  • Give an author performance, reading aloud from their own material
  • Consistently observe politeness conventions
  • Speak one at a time, look at and listen to the speaker, yield and/or signal for a chance to speak, and adjust volume to the setting
  • Produce rhyming words and recognize pairs of rhyming words
  • Play with alliteration, tongue twisters, and onomatopoeia
  • Use double meanings or multiple meanings of words for riddles and jokes
  • Vary sentence openers and use a wide range of syntactic patterns
  • Build vocabulary by connecting newly acquired words to relevant categories
  • Recognize multiple meanings of words
  • Increase vocabulary of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to gain fluency and exercise options in word choice