On-level in 2nd Grade

Denton ISD uses the Guided Reading Level (GRL) system to match students with books that are just right.  Your child will have a letter on their report card indicating their reading level.  For more information about each level, check out this guide from a public library in New Jersey: https://www.rivervalelibrary.org/guided-reading 

At the beginning of 2nd, readers should be reading a level J.  This level encompasses both picture and beginning chapter books.

• Picture book examples of a J: Mo Willems’ Pigeon books, Green Eggs & Ham,  Pete the Cat & His Four Groovy Buttons

• Early chapter book examples of a J: the Henry & Mudge series, the Annie & Snowball series, the Young Cam Jansen series

What do J books have, and what do J readers do?  J books have words with prefixes and suffixes (rewrite, hardly), inflectional endings (walking, stopped), plural words with different endings (pony to ponies), irregular plurals (goose to geese), homophones (write/right), 2 and 3 syllable words, one syllable words with a variety of vowel teams (dream, scowl), and letter y as a vowel sound (fly, happy).  A J reader is no longer able to rely on words having only short vowels, or long vowels only with the vowel-consonant-silent-e pattern.  They cannot sound out a word one letter at a time.  They must have a firm grip on vowel teams such as ea, igh, or ue, as well as blends like br, and digraphs like th. 

Example sentence:

 “What must have been the largest single-day collection of holiday catalogs ever mailed to one address landed on me.”  (Nate the Great and the Crunchy Christmas by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Craig Sharmat)

Here are some of the things a J reader would do with this sentence:

1. Solve most of the words within 3 seconds each.

2. Come close to solving words like collection, catalogs, and address using the context of a boy opening a mailbox.  

3. Understand the meaning of the words collection, catalog, and address either from prior knowledge or using context clues.

4. Understand the use of ‘single-day’ instead of ‘in one day’

5. Possibly read in a tone that indicates surprise, frustration, or resignation (reading like an actor.)

At the end of 2nd grade, readers are considered on-level at N. 

• Chapter book examples of N: Magic Treehouse series, A to Z Mysteries series, The Puppy Place series 

• Picture books examples of N: The Giving Tree, Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse, Stellaluna.  (However, readers at a level N must have the stamina to read multi-chapter novels, not just picture books.)

What do N books have, and what do N readers do?  N books have more complex plots and use literary devices such as irony or foreshadowing to tell the story without simply laying out the plot from point A to point B.  Word solving at this point must be automatic for most words up to 3 syllables.  Level N books will use advanced vocabulary and the reader is expected to use context clues to figure out the meaning.  The reader may never have heard a certain vocabulary word, so they may pronounce it strangely but understand the definition or how to use it.  Readers are, however, reading familiar words the way that the author intended - making their voice go up or down depending on punctuation and character’s mood, reading in phrases instead of chunks, and looking at things like bold or italics to understand tone.  This is reading like an actor.

Example sentence:

“So the orchestra played the short sarabande again, and the children danced around the classroom in a very serious and graceful way.”   (Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry)

Here are some of the things an N reader would do with this sentence:

1. Quickly solve most of the words, including orchestra (from context).

2. Pause at the comma the way a story teller would.

3. Probably guess at sarabande (sarah-bandy?) but understood from the line before that it means a piece of music you can dance to.

4. Create a mental picture of what a class of 2nd graders looks like if they are dancing “in a very serious and graceful way” and maybe realize that it may not look serious (irony).

At ANY level your student reads, they need to understand what they read and be able to tell you the main characters, setting, and events of the story when they’ve finished reading the book.  As they read, the events of the story should be playing out like a movie in their mind.

The best thing to do to help your child go from a J to an N in one year is to have them read often, and talk to them about what they read.  They need to be flexible with their vowel sounds when trying out new words, and they need to stop and think about whether they understand the words they just read (make a movie in their mind).  They also have to look for smaller automatic words inside longer words, and by the end of 2nd grade they should be able to break words apart syllable by syllable following traditional rules (which we will teach this year).

Writing

Second graders will write three kinds of writing: Narrative, Informational, and Opinion.  They will read and study poetry, and may craft some poems with help, but it is not a style of writing that we grade them on.

Narrative writing: can the writer tell a personal story where they focus on one small moment in a bigger story?  For example, instead of writing all about your vacation to Disney World, the writer writes a single story about the plane ride there, or how it felt to ride a single roller coaster.  The stories should flow like a narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end.  An advanced writer might even include a problem or conflict in the story, and solve the problem at the end.  They must write a beginning where they let the reader know what the story will be about, and an ending where they wrap up the story with a feeling, an action, a hope, or a lesson learned.

Informational writing: can the writer teach a reader all about a subject or write a how-to text with steps to follow?  For example, a second grader could teach their reader everything they know about their favorite animal and organize the information under headings (such as food, life cycle, how it looks).  They could include nonfiction text features such as diagrams or bold words.  Or, a second grader can teach their reader how to do a gymnastics skill or a household chore.  They could organize the information by steps, including letting the reader know what supplies they will need, and could include nonfiction text features such as tips or warnings.

Both of these types of writings are expected to be no less than 3 pages (front, back, front) in length.  Each page should have multiple sentences on it. 

Opinion: can the writer state an opinion with reasons and facts to back it up?  For example, a second grader could write a letter to the principal saying that second graders should get 2 recess breaks per day.  They would give sensible reasons(kids work hard and need play, recess is fun) and back those reasons up with factual details (kids have to read level N books, recess is a time when kids are smiling and laughing). 

An opinion piece would be at least 1 whole front page, and maybe even continue onto the back.

In ALL writing, whether a 4 page book or a single sentence, a second grader on-level is using everything they know to spell words correctly (using their Snap Word book for tricky words, stretching out every single sound and writing letters that make those sounds, using one word to spell another), capitalizing the first letter of a sentence and proper nouns, putting appropriate punctuation at the end of a sentence, and writing in legible handwriting. 

To help your child improve their writing, have conversations with them, and practice writing things down.  Children write the way they talk and the way they are talked to - by letting your child tell you a story and helping them flesh out the details, you are reinforcing the behavior that a story isn’t just a list of things that happened - there are thoughts and feelings and other features.  Have a parent/child journal where you practice writing to each other - the parent can ask a question, the child can answer it using full sentences, then the child can ask and the parent can answer.  

Keep in mind that in terms of human language, written expression was the last thing to evolve and it’s the last part children learn. They’re born listening, and communicating, they learn to recognize print, and finally they learn to form that print themselves.  Learning to read eventually clicks for most people, but learning to write and write well can be a decades-long process.