Rising 2nd Graders: Using Vowel Power to Read

This unit is designed to get students off to a great second grade school year by strengthening their foundation reading skills, particularly those related to vowel sounds.

Children will:

• practice applying what they know about short vowel sounds to read CVC and CCVC words. Students will have a multitude of opportunities to build these decoding muscles as they read decodable texts.

• pay close attention to short vowel sounds at the end of words as they pair up with blends and digraphs. They will also study inflected endings such as ed, ing and s

• provides an introduction to the common vowel teams and

Second Grade Reading Growth Spurt & Growing Word Solving Muscles

This unit helps children to word solve more quickly and efficiently in order to help comprehend longer and more difficult texts. Children will…

• learn to stop at point of error and quickly fix up their error

• use various strategies to figure out tricky words

Becoming Nonfiction Experts

This is a non-fiction reading unit. In this unit, children will learn to read to grow ideas about a topic, use keywords (vocabulary) related to a topic, and connect information across books within a topic. Children will…

• ask questions about books/topics they read

• combine details learned in a book to better understand a topic

• learn to use context clues to figure out new vocabulary

• use nonfiction text features (headings, diagrams, labels) to learn more

• read more than one book on a topic and retell all about the topic

Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power

This unit is designed to support the children with comprehension while paying attention to fluency. This unit also focuses on reading a lot (volume of reading) and understanding literary language. Children will…

• track events in longer stories

• use post-its in their books

Series Book Clubs

This unit is a fictional reading unit. The children will engage in reading books within a series.

Children will…

• practice various comprehension skills throughout this unit (previewing, envisioning, predicting, and inferring)

Nonfiction Book Clubs

This is a nonfiction reading unit. Children will work in groups to learn about a topic. Children will…

• work in groups sharing and responding about relevant information learned

• expand on the work they’ve learned in previous nonfiction units

Writing Teeny Adventures (NarrativE)

This unit is constructed to empower and motivate students to tell stories from their lives. The unit strives to have students write in volume; each time sharpening their skills of writing personal narratives.

Children will:

• read mentor text to learn craft ideas from the experts

• learn various strategies to help them generate ideas for their stories

• utilize tools available to them. Tools such as word charts, digraph and blends charts, books and environmental print to assist them in the writing process to spell.

• utilize strategies such as listening for word parts, stretching out words and thinning about what they know about vowel sounds

• apply revising and editing strategies

• BIG GOAL: conventions/spelling

Writing Gripping Fictional Stories

This unit is a realistic fiction writing unit. The children will write “edge of the seat stories” where the character wants something and struggles to get it. The students will develop characters in a way that builds tension. A goal of this unit is to increase the student’s volume in writing and raise the quality of their writing. Children will…

• generate and write several small moment stories with details and suspense

• revise with intention and make changes to their story, especially stretching out the most important parts

• repeat the process and set new goals for their writing using a narrative checklist

The How-To Guide to Nonfiction Writing

This unit is a non-fiction writing unit. The children will write a lot of nonfiction books. The children will write about topics they know a lot about. This unit is topic based, but does not involve research. It really focuses on what the children know a lot about. Children will…

• be expected to write a lot during this unit (volume)

• practice writing for different audiences

• work on more sophisticated revisions (adding a chapter, rewrite a whole section)

Poetry: Big Thoughts Small Packages

In this unit, the children will experiment with their creativity and imagination by writing poetry. The unit ends in a poetry slam. Children will…

• work on line breaks, rhythm, repetition, and sound while writing poems

• experiment with word choice to help convey meaning

Writing About Reading

This unit is an opinion writing unit. The children will write the ideas they have about books and back up their ideas with reasons and evidence. Children will…

• write letters about their ideas about books with reasons and evidence from the text

• persuade others to give specific awards to books focused on the theme or lesson learned from the book

Nonfiction Writing Projects

This unit provides children the opportunity to return to nonfiction writing with greater independence. Children will:

• write a wide variety of nonfiction structures, some old and some new (nonfiction comics, articles, how-to books, etc)

• write about topics of personal expertise/interest