Grade 2 Word Study Curriculum
Family-facing version of the grade 2 word study curriculum
Quarterly Overview of Grade 2 Word Study
The objectives and outcomes for each unit are common across FCPS and based on the Virginia Standards of Learning. The pacing by quarter and by week provides an example of how the curriculum can be organized throughout the year. Teacher teams may adjust the pacing or order of units to best meet the needs of students.
Units and Details
Unit 1: Building a Community of Word Learners
Students will be able to:
- Learn that readers and writers study how words work.
Unit 2: Vowel Pairs with More than One Sound
Students will be able to understand:
- Letters combine in different ways to represent sounds.
- Sometimes vowel pairs stand for more than one sound.
- Vowel teams stay together within syllables.
Unit 3: Abstract Vowels
Students will be able to understand:
- Letters combine in different ways to represent sounds.
- Some vowel pairs represent sounds that are neither long nor short and are not influenced by the letter r.
- Vowel pairs stay together within syllables.
Unit 4: Complex Consonants
Students will be able to understand:
- Letters combine in different ways to represent sounds.
- Some letters can have both hard and soft sounds.
- Some consonant letters are silent when they are paired with other letters.
Unit 5: R-Controlled Long Vowels
Students will be able to understand:
- Letters combine in different ways to represent sounds.
- The letter “r” affects the sound of the vowels it is paired with.
Unit 6: More Complex Contractions and Possessives
Students will be able to understand:
- Possessives are nouns and pronouns that show ownership (e.g., dog’s ball).
- Singular possessives are formed by adding an apostrophe and s (e.g., dog’s ball). Understand contractions are two words that have been shortened to form one new word (e.g., do+not=don’t; we+have=we’ve).
- Contractions are formed by using an apostrophe to indicate where letters have been removed (e.g., did + not=didn’t; we + will=we’ll).
Unit 7: Inflectional Endings
Students will be able to understand:
- Inflectional endings change the grammatical function and meaning of root words.
- Some roots words undergo a spelling change when an inflectional ending is added.
Unit 8: Compound Words
Students will be able to understand:
- A compound word is a single word that contains two or more complete words (e.g., mailbox, doghouse).
- The meaning of a compound word can be determined by analyzing the meanings of each of the words within it (e.g., a mailbox is a box for mail; a doghouse is a house for a dog).
- The second word gives the main idea of the word (e.g., a mailbox is a box; a doghouse is a house).
- The first word describes, or gives an important detail about, the second word (e.g., a mailbox is a box for mail; a doghouse is a house for a dog).
Unit 9: Prefixes and Suffixes
Students will be able to understand:
- Prefixes are word parts that have meaning.
- Prefixes attach to the beginnings of root words and change the meanings of words
- Suffixes attach to the end of roots/root words.
- Some suffixes have meaning.
- Suffixes change what a word does in a sentence.
- The recognizable word that the prefix or suffix attaches to is called a root word, or a base word.
Virginia Department of Education Resources
Assessments
Student assessments are part of the teaching and learning process.
- Teachers give assessments to students on an ongoing basis to
- Check for understanding
- Gather information about students' knowledge or skills.
- Assessments provide information about a child's development of knowledge and skills that can help families and teachers better plan for next steps in instruction.
For testing questions or additional information about how schools and teachers use test results to support student success, families can contact their children's schools.
In Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), second grade tests focus on basic literacy and numeracy development.
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Word Study