At School: Kids will identify and correctly use nouns and verbs, recognize simple prefixes and suffixes, and identify simple multiple-meaning words.
At Home: Help your child get his own library card. Expose him to a wider variety of books and genres and try out different children’s magazines. Whether your child reads independently or with you, it’s important to ask him about what he’s read and to encourage him to retell stories. Share stories about your family and your family history or make up stories together. Play a homonym game by taking turns to think up pairs of words that sound the same but have different meanings, such as “deer” and “dear,” or ask your second grader to think up words that have multiple meanings, such as “lie” or “fair,” and talk about the differences. Continue to take turns. Your second grader will likely need some help coming up with words, so give him clues and prompts as you play.
Writing
At School: By the end of second grade, kids will be able to write a basic story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. They will also be able to edit and revise their writing to make it clearer and to correct errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.
At Home: Encourage your child to write stories that have a logical sequence, with a small problem and a resolution. Encourage her to reread her work to make it clearer. Help your child make her own book by folding pieces of paper in half and stapling them in the middle. She’ll love writing her own story and drawing pictures to illustrate it. Ask her to help write the grocery list, thank-you notes, or letters to relatives, and have her read aloud everything she’s written for homework. “If they wrote sentences at home for homework, they have to be able to read them,” Quinn says.