Reading & Literacy
 

Grades 1-2

Children come to first grade with different levels of reading ability. Some can read, some are just starting to read, and some have not yet started reading. By the end of first grade, most children will have improved their reading ability, and they will be able to summarize and answer questions about stories they read.

First-graders' ability to write is closely linked to their reading and listening experiences. Children who know stories know how to make up their own. Some children are good writers when they enter first grade while others struggle. By the end of first grade, most children will be able to communicate through their writing and drawing, making words by writing letters for the sounds they hear (called “invented spelling”).

Many second-graders know the importance of reading and want to be good readers. During second grade, children enjoy hearing books with more complicated plots, and a few begin reading books divided into chapters.

Second-graders’ writing begins to show personality. Many children start to write for fun. They still use invented spelling and enjoy trying out new types of stories, sometimes imitating their favorite books or authors.

 

What you can do at home

Speaking and Listening

  • Be involved in your children’s reading and writing.
  • Talk about experiences you have had with them. Ask them to tell you about the experience or what someone else has said. 
  • Talk with them about their reading and writing. Ask questions if you don’t understand what they are trying to say. 
  • Play games like “I Spy” (“I spy something that starts with the letter b”), Junior Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. 
  • Encourage them to use new words in conversations.
  • Ask them to talk about their passions and interests.

Reading

  • Read with your children every day. Continue to read aloud to them and ask them to read to you. Talk about what the stories make them remember, think about or wonder.
  • If you are more comfortable reading in another language, use books with both English and your first language. When you share these, it helps them to learn both. You can take turns reading in each language.
  • Support your children’s reading efforts. Don’t interrupt to correct mistakes that do not affect the story. Help them sound out words using pictures and letter sounds.
  • Ask them to tell you about the stories you are reading together. Ask them to predict what will happen next or what the characters might do.
  • Take them to the public library to check out books. 
  • Encourage your children to read all kinds of books (stories, picture books, poetry, true books) and everything around you (newspapers, signs, cereal boxes).
  • Ask them to read you their stories and talk about them.

Writing

  • Ask your children to write things for you, like a letter to a relative or a grocery list. Leave notes for them and encourage them to write notes to you.
  • Give them opportunities to write with different materials, including the computer if you have access to one.

What your student may be experiencing at school

Speaking and Listening

  • Telling stories or acting things out.
  • Sharing ideas and observations with classmates and teachers.
  • Talking about books, stories and ideas with classmates and teachers.
  • Sharing family stories.
  • Speaking with expression and appropriate gestures for different purposes.

Reading

  • Putting sounds and letters together to make sense of unfamiliar grade-level words with more than one syllable.
  • Studying words by exploring their meanings, finding related words and looking at how words are used in different ways.
  • Reading grade-level texts with appropriate speed, accuracy and expression.
  • Learning how to pick books that match their reading level.
  • Enjoying what they read and write, talking about what they like and making recommendations to others.
  • Using different ways to solve reading problems, like sounding out words, looking for familiar parts of words and word families, and making sense of words by the way they are used in the sentence or story.
  • Using strategies like asking questions and rereading to clarify the meaning of what they have read.
  • Reading to find out information.

Writing

  • Exploring different types of writing, such as keeping notebooks of their favorite words and writing notes to their friends.
  • Writing sentences that are in a logical order and that make sense.
  • Creating imaginative and personal stories using the writing process.
  • Writing or drawing pictures to share what they have learned about a topic or respond to an experience.
  • Talking about their writing. 
  • Spelling common words correctly and using a dictionary or word wall to spell new words correctly.
  • Using periods, question marks, exclamation marks and capital letters.
  • Publishing their writing.