What to expect for Reading and English?

Reading

Phonics Skills: Second grade is such an important year for growing and expanding our reading skills that your child started learning in first grade. They will expand their knowledge of phonics by learning more about blends, digraphs, short and long vowels, vowel teams and r-controlled vowels.

The year will begin with reviewing short vowel words and CVC words. CVC words are consonant-vowel-consonant words (cat, let, dog, pin, hug, etc...) Your child will also review and learn more about words with blends and digraphs.

• Blends- two or more letters that blend together, but the sounds can be pulled apart. Example: stop S-T blend together!

• Digraphs- two or more letters that join together to make one new sound. These sounds cannot be pulled apart! Examples: sh, ch, wh, th, ph etc...

• We will start looking at long vowel words with silent e. From there we start to explore more blends, digraphs, vowel teams, and r-controlled vowels.

• Vowel teams- vowels that pair together to make a long sound. Examples: oa, ee, oo, ow, ou, ea etc...

• R controlled vowels- vowels paired with an r to make a new sound. Examples: ar, or, er, ur, and ir

Reading Components: Second graders also learn about elements in stories. We will work on understanding the main idea of a story, supporting ideas, titles, author, illustrator. We will read fiction and nonfiction stories as well as plays and informational texts that will crossover in science and social studies.

English

Grammar is very important to help us understand our writing and reading! In second grade we start by looking at ABC order of words, subject and predicates, writing complete sentences with the correct punctuation, and nouns!

Here are some of the other grammar skills we will master this year-

• plural nouns

• proper nouns

• verbs

• adjectives

• subject/verb agreement

• compound words

• pronouns

• commas

• contractions

• Synonyms

• Antonyms

• Homophones

• Idioms

Science

This year we will be switching classes, so I will be teaching your child Science class!

Second grade science is lots of fun! Second graders start by learning about what it means to be a scientist with the scientific method.

The units we will cover this year are:

• Forces (gravity and magnetism)

• Matter (solid, liquid, and gas)

• Life Cycles (animals, insects, and plants)

• Habitats

• Weather

• Animal Adaptations (migration, hibernation, camouflage)

• Plants and Resources