Meet your increasingly self-sufficient writers and readers in the second grade! Your second-grader is on her road to increasing fluency and establishing deeper comprehension; simple words and sentences are now nothing to your second-grader. She is becoming proficient in addition and subtraction as well as more complex word problems in math.
This year, there will likely be more homework (perhaps a lot more, based on the school and the teacher), but you may still make it enjoyable. Susan Quinn, a reading specialist and elementary school teacher at Saint Brendan School in the Bronx, New York, recommends, “Don’t make it a fight, or they’ll get turned off.” When your child gets home from school, let her rest and play rather than forcing her to do her homework immediately. However, please don’t wait until it’s too late because she’ll be exhausted.
If your kid has difficulties with skills, speak to their teacher as soon as possible. Quinn advises getting additional assistance now to “nip it in the bud early.” Your kid will continue to develop the abilities she acquired in first grade while also learning new ones during this school year. The significant learning achievements that kids should make by the end of second grade are listed below, along with advice for keeping your child on track.
Reading
Students can recognize simple prefixes, suffixes, and simple multiple-meaning words and correctly utilize nouns and verbs at school.
At home:
- Assist your kid in obtaining a library card.
- Try out other kids’ publications and expose him to a broader range of books and genres.
- Ask your child about what he’s read and encourage him to retell stories, whether he reads independently or with you.
- Share family history tales, or make up your tales.
- Play a game of homonyms where you take turns coming up with pairs of words that seem alike but mean different things, like “deer” and “dear,” or encourage your second-grader to come up with terms that imply various things, like “lying” or “fair,” and then discuss the variations.
- Continue trading off.
- Give your second-grader clues and suggestions as you play because he probably needs assistance coming up with words.
Writing
At school: Students should be able to create a simple story with a beginning, middle, and end by the end of second grade. Additionally, they can edit and modify their writing to improve its clarity and fix any spelling, grammatical, punctuation, and capitalization mistakes.
At home: Encourage your youngster to compose tales that follow a logical progression and feature a resolved minor issue. She should revise her writing to make it more understandable. Folding and middle-stapling pieces of paper will enable your youngster to create her book. She will enjoy creating illustrations for her own stories that she will write. Have her read aloud anything she has written for homework, and ask her to assist with writing the grocery list, thank-you notes, or letters to family members. They must be able to read if they compose sentences for their schoolwork at home.
Math Sense
At school, second-grade students will be able to add and subtract two-digit numbers more rapidly and accurately in addition to counting, reading, writing, and ordering consecutive numbers up to 1,000. They will develop their grasp of place values when adding and subtracting three-digit numbers and learn to add and remove whole numbers up to three. As they prepare to learn simple multiplication, a crucial third-grade skill, second-graders will also answer multistep addition and subtraction word problems.
At home: Continue to explain basic math to your child. Look for word problems in everyday situations. For example, if your youngster wants to buy a new toy for $5 but only has $2, ask him how much extra he’ll need.
Counting and geometry
Second graders at school will measure length to the closest inch or centimeter. They will be able to categorize and describe geometric shapes based on the quantity and kind of faces, edges, and vertices (corners).
At home:
- Have your kid measure several body parts (such as her waist, arm, foot, and head) and then compare the lengths to those of a sibling or friend.
- Ask her to distinguish between inches and millimeters.
- Ask her to count the faces, edges, and vertices on a cereal box at breakfast and then inquire whether the number is the same for all cereal boxes.
- Have your child go on a “symmetry hunt” around the house to look for symmetrical patterns in the carpet, bed linens, bathroom tiles, and other areas.
- Find and examine 3-D shapes in objects, including marbles, oranges, soup cans, jelly jars, construction blocks, and cardboard boxes (cubes).
She could even draw a circle or other 2-D shape on some paper and then match it to a comparable 3-D object (a sphere).
Counting Time
The number of minutes in an hour, hours in a day, and days in a month are among the relationships and units of time children this age can grasp at school. They can also tell the time to the closest quarter hour. They are more aware of when events occur or will occur.
Once your child understands the quarter hour, have a conversation with them at home about 5-minute intervals. Point out times when the clock shows five after, ten after, etc. Together, keep note of how much time he spends each day watching TV, playing video games, and doing homework. Compare the amounts and note the times. To give your youngster the extra motivation he needs to learn the nuances of telling time, think about giving him his wristwatch (analog or digital).
