I
Language and Literature
Reading, Writing, and Your Second Grader: A Note to Parents
In the Core Knowledge books for kindergarten and first grade, we described some features of an effective reading and writing program in schools. A good program, we said, not only is rich in literature but also presents varied opportunities for a child to work and play with letters and sounds. An effective program presents important skills sequentially, with plenty of practice and review. It includes phonics and decoding (turning the written symbols into sounds) as well as practice at spelling, handwriting, punctuation, and grammar.
By the end of second grade, a reasonable goal is for children to become independent readers and writers. By this we don’t mean that children should be able to read any book in the library or write a perfectly polished essay; rather, they should be able to read books appropriate to beginning readers, and write legibly.
Nothing is more important in a child’s schooling than learning to read and write confidently by the end of first grade or more important than extending that ability by the end of second grade.
Based on authoritative advice from mainstream scientific research, the Core Knowledge Foundation has compiled a description of reading and writing goals that a school should work to achieve with all students in second grade. Those goals are included in the Core Knowledge Sequence, the curriculum guidelines upon which this book is based, and in the Core Knowledge Language Arts Program used in schools across the country. Parents who wish to have some benchmarks by which to gauge the adequacy and effectiveness of the reading and writing programs in their child’s school should visit: https://www.coreknowledge.org for information on downloading or ordering a copy of the Core Knowledge Sequence.
In addition, as parents, you can do many things to help your children.
• Read aloud regularly and talk with your children about what they are reading
• Take your children to the library
• Help your children write thank-you notes and letters to relatives
• Play word games like Hangman or Scrabble Junior
• Check on homework
• Be encouraging and supportive of your children’s efforts to learn more about language
Suggested Resources for Parents and Children
The resources recommended here are meant to supplement at home the more thorough and systematic instruction that should take place in the classroom.
Ready … Set … Read: The Beginning Reader’s Treasury and Ready … Set … Read—and Laugh! A Funny Treasury for Beginning Readers, compiled by Joanna Cole and Stephanie Calmenson (Doubleday, 1990 and 1995). Two nicely illustrated collections containing stores, poems, riddles, and word games by well-known writers such as Arnold Lobel and Eve Merriam.
Spider. Colorful, attractive artwork illustrates each issue of this monthly magazine for children from six to nine years old, which features many stories, activities, and puzzles, with no advertising. Many libraries carry the magazine. For subscription information, go to the Cricket Magazine Group website (http://www.cricketmag.com).
Literature
Introduction
For your second grader, we offer a selection of poetry, stories, and myths. The poetry includes traditional rhymes as well as a few favorites by modern writers. We encourage you to read many more poems with your child, to delight in the play of language, and occasionally to encourage your child to memorize a favorite poem.
The stories presented here are mostly traditional tales that have stood the test of time. Some of the selections from other lands may not be familiar to American readers, but by including them here we hope to make them so. Parents and teachers may want to connect the folktales we include from China, Japan, and India with the introductions to those lands in the World History and Geography section of this book. We also offer a selection of Greek myths, which you can tie in with the discussion of ancient Greece in the World History and Geography section.
The stories here are meant to complement, not replace, stories with controlled vocabularies and syntax that children may be given in school as part of their instruction in reading. While some second graders may be able to read the stories in this book on their own, those who find the language too complex can readily understand and enjoy these stories when they are read aloud and talked about with an adult. You may also want to try some “shared reading,” in which you read aloud parts of a story and your child reads aloud parts to you.
Many of these stories convey traditional values such as honesty, courage, generosity, and diligence. Those parents who hope that schooling will instill ethical values can feel somewhat reassured if their children are being taught good literature. Next to human role models who exemplify the desired virtues, good literature is one of the best means of instilling ethical values. Plato said that stories are the most important part of early education and advised parents and teachers to take great care in choosing the right stories: “Let them fashion the mind with such tales even more fondly than they mold the body.”
We offer the stories in this book as a good starting point, and we encourage you and your child to explore further. Your local library has a treasury of good books, fiction and nonfiction. You might want to consult the lists of recommended works in such guides as:
Books That Build Character by William Kilpatrick et al. (Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 1994)
Books to Build On: A Grade-by-Grade Resource Guide for Parents and Teachers edited by John Holdren and E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (Dell, 1996)
The New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson (Harmony, revised and updated 2000)
Poetry
Bed in Summer
by Robert Louis Stevenson
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
Buffalo Dusk
by Carl Sandburg
The buffaloes are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.
Caterpillars
by Aileen Fisher
What do caterpillars do?
Nothing much but chew and chew.
What do caterpillars know?
Nothing much but how to grow.
They just eat what by and by
will make them be a butterfly,
But that is more than I can do
however much I chew and chew.
Copyright © 2014 by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
