If by the end of 1st grade students ought to write legibly and be “beginning readers;” then the logical 2nd-grade goal is for students to become confident in these skills upon the close of the academic year. Professional 2nd-grade classroom instructors at LCS continue to engage students with phonics and primary literacy. One strategy used here is Open Court readers, where instructors select readers for students to practice phonics in the classroom and with purposeful redundancy at home. By the fourth quarter, one can observe in students a very clear transition from learning to read, to reading to learn.

Read-aloud literature choices continue to feature traditional values such as integrity, perseverance, and courage, consistent with Plato’s timeless maxim that children ought to “fashion the mind with such tales even more fondly than they mold the body.”

Responsibility is a key Foundation Stone in the 2nd-grade classroom, where professional instructors deliberately work to transition students from dependence to independence, placing the onus of responsibility for classwork, homework, and behavior choices on the student rather than parents. This strategy aligns nicely with the strategy to transition students into independent readers.

Consistent with other elementary-level classrooms, 2nd-grade classrooms continue instruction in and practice of Singapore Math, penmanship, and cross-curricular connections from the Core Knowledge Curriculum.