FOR

Checklist

 PARENTS OF SECOND & THIRD GRADERS

SECOND GRADE

❏ My child knows how to use the rules of phonics to help him figure out

unfamiliar words.

❏ My child reads many sight words and regularly spelled one-and two-syllab

words.

❏ My child reads and understands second grade fiction and nonfiction, and

compares and connects information from different sources.

❏ My child reads for specific purposes and specific questions, and explores

topics of interest on her own.

❏ My child answers “how,” “why,” and “what if” questions, and recalls

information, main ideas, and details after reading.

❏ My child interprets information from diagrams, charts, and graphs.

❏ My child takes part in creative responses to stories, such as dramatizations

and oral presentations.

❏ My child pays attention to how words are spelled and correctly spells word

he has studied.

❏ My child spells a word the way it sounds if she doesn’t know its spelling.

❏ My child writes for many different purposes and writes different types of

compositions (for example, stories, reports, and letters).

❏ My child makes thoughtful choices about what to include in his writing.

❏ My child takes part in writing conferences, revises and edits what

she has written, and attends to the mechanics of writing (spelling,

capitalization, and punctuation) in her final versions.

❏ My child learns new words and shares them at school and at home.

❏ My child uses clues from the context and his knowledge of word parts

(roots, prefixes, suffixes) to figure out what words mean.

❏ My child is increasing his vocabulary with synonyms and antonyms.

❏ My child uses parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) correctly.

❏ My child learns new words through independent reading.

These skills usually develop during grades two and

three. Talk with your child’s teacher if you

have questions.

(over)
SECOND & THIRD GRADERS

HOW TO USE 

THIS BOOKLET

You are your child’s 

first and most important

teacher. Use this booklet to

help your young child

learn to read. 

• The story on PAGE 1

is about the parent of a

3rd grader. As you

read it, watch for ways

that Jason’s mother

helps him learn to read,

like listening to him

read and reading a

map together. 

• Build your child’s

reading skills by trying

activities like those on

PAGE 4. 

• Use the CHECKLIST on

the back page to think

about your child’s

reading skills.
A Parent’s Story

O

The Old Red Chair

ur old red armchair has seen better days! The stuffing’s coming out of the

arms and one leg wobbles a bit. But Jason, my nine-year-old, has made it his special reading place, so

I guess we’ll keep it. I can tell it’s a magic place for him. He sprawls across it, opens a book—and it’s

like he’s in another place.

Sometimes he even seems like he’s in another time. Lately he’s been reading about

ancient Egypt. He tells me he wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up. He

wants to find artifacts from thousands of years ago. I was impressed that he

knew the word “artifact.” He said he found it in one of his books and his

older brother Andy had helped him sound it out. It means things made by

people, rather than natural things, he told me.

His vocabulary is growing so fast! From reading

about archaeology he’s added words like “excavation” and “observation.”

I know they’re just fancy words for “dig” and “look,” but they’re

more exact. It seems like the more words he knows, the better sense

he can make of the world.

Jason’s interest in Egypt started last fall. The school librarian had gone

on a real “dig” over the summer, in Mexico, I think. When she got back and

the school year began, she showed the students how real archaeologists work.

Then the students did their own dig. They marked an area in the schoolyard, dug

SECOND & THIRD GRADERS
2

The more

words you

know, the

more words

you can say.

it up carefully, and made a note of everything they found. Jason came home nearly bursting with

excitement. He had found an old-fashioned skeleton key!

“It was so cool, Mom,” he told me. “There was so much in the dig! You know, leaves, and

rocks, and bugs—and then I found this real key! At first I thought it was just another rock but I

kept digging. When I found it, even Mrs. Stevens got excited. It’s a real artifact!”

The stories he made up about that key! First he decided the Pilgrims had left it, but his teacher

told him that the Pilgrims didn’t travel this far west. So he decided pioneers had left the key behind

on their way west. “I’m sure there’s a story about it,” he said.

That night, I took the boys to the library after dinner. Andy,

who’s crazy about baseball, took out a biography of Satchel Paige. Jason met me at the checkout

desk with a musty-looking book that turned out to be an early history of our town. “That’s a grownup book, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Can you help me with it?” I told him I’d try.

The book was pretty hard reading, so the next night, I read part of it aloud to my boys. I still

read to them when I can. Our days get so busy it can be hard to find any time for the three of us to

be together. So I read most nights, even if it’s just for fifteen minutes.

Reading to them is like having them little again, except now they talk more! As I

read about our town, Jason wanted to know where the oldest house was. Andy was

amazed to learn that the early settlers just laid out the streets of our town and

built a flour mill. “Just like that?” he asked.

“I think so,” I said. I didn’t know much about our town, either. The flour

mill must have been torn down a long time ago. There is no sign of it anymore.

We came to a map and looked at that for a long time. The boys tried to match places on

the map with places in town they know. I can see why they call it “reading” a map. They even found

SECOND & THIRD GRADERS
the place where our house is now! It was just fields in the old days. So was Jason’s school—no clues

there about his skeleton key! But he decided to write his own short story about his pioneers idea and

where that key came from. He just had to know!

This school year will be an important one in Jason’s life as a reader. His teacher said that next

year, in fourth grade, students begin to “read to learn” rather than “learn to read.” That means the

teachers will expect Jason to know how to read pretty smoothly so they can begin to teach more

complex ideas.

I’m sure Jason will be a strong reader by then. He’s starting to get

the habits of a good reader. For example, when he comes to a word he doesn’t understand, he reads

me the whole sentence and tries to figure out what it means. If I don’t know, we look it up.

Then he goes back to the red armchair, stretches out over it, and goes back to his book

and the place he goes when he reads. I don’t know if he’ll stay interested in archaeology or if

something else will seem “awesome” to him later. Whatever it is, I think he’ll start by

reading about it.

By fourth grade,

the students

begin to “read to

learn” rather

than “learn to

read.”

The End.

SECOND & THIRD GRADERS
There’s more to reading together

than just saying the words.

Try asking your second or

third grader questions like

these when you read together.

4

The Mummies of Ancient Egypt

Activity Page

ncient Egyptians probably discovered

the process of mummification by

accident. Because Egypt is so arid,

(it has almost no rainfall), bodies

buried in the sand did not

decompose, but were

preserved instead. Later, the

Egyptians began mummifying

the bodies of kings and

other important people on

purpose.

To the Egyptians, a person

had both a body and spirit.

They believed that a

person’s spirit could live

after the body’s death, if

it had a body to live in.

The Egyptians invented

mummification to preserve the

body so the spirit could live on.

The mummies of ancient Egypt are

so well preserved that today we can

have a good idea of what a person

looked like thousands of years after he or she

lived. The best preserved mummies date from about three

thousand years ago.

Talk about the text...

A • How does the author say the Egyptians got

the idea of mummifying bodies? Does this

make sense to you?

They noticed that bodies did not decompose in the

dry sand.

• Why was it important to the ancient

Egyptians that bodies be mummified?

They believed the spirit would survive if the body

was preserved.

Talk about words and sounds... • Let’s count out the syllables in

mummification.

Five.

• What’s the noun based on the word

“invent?”

Invention.

• What are some other words that end in

“tion”?

Intention, nation, reflection, etc.

Talk about new words...

• What do we call a place that gets very

little rain?

A desert.

• What’s another word for invent?

Create, build, etc.

SECOND & THIRD GRADERS

SECOND & THIRD GRADERS

HOW TO USE 

THIS BOOKLET

You are your child’s 

first and most important

teacher. Use this booklet to

help your young child

learn to read. 

• The story on PAGE 1

is about the parent of a

3rd grader. As you

read it, watch for ways

that Jason’s mother

helps him learn to read,

like listening to him

read and reading a

map together. 

• Build your child’s

reading skills by trying

activities like those on

PAGE 4. 

• Use the CHECKLIST on

the back page to think

about your child’s

reading skills.
SECOND & THIRD GRADERS

HOW TO USE 

THIS BOOKLET

You are your child’s 

first and most important

teacher. Use this booklet to

help your young child

learn to read. 

• The story on PAGE 1

is about the parent of a

3rd grader. As you

read it, watch for ways

that Jason’s mother

helps him learn to read,

like listening to him

read and reading a

map together. 

• Build your child’s

reading skills by trying

activities like those on

PAGE 4. 

• Use the CHECKLIST on

the back page to think

about your child’s

reading skills.
FOR

Checklist

 PARENTS OF SECOND & THIRD GRADERS

SECOND GRADE

❏ My child knows how to use the rules of phonics to help him figure out

unfamiliar words.

❏ My child reads many sight words and regularly spelled one-and two-sylla

words.

❏ My child reads and understands second grade fiction and nonfiction, and

compares and connects information from different sources.

❏ My child reads for specific purposes and specific questions, and explores

topics of interest on her own.

❏ My child answers “how,” “why,” and “what if” questions, and recalls

information, main ideas, and details after reading.

❏ My child interprets information from diagrams, charts, and graphs.

❏ My child takes part in creative responses to stories, such as dramatizatio

and oral presentations.

❏ My child pays attention to how words are spelled and correctly spells wo

he has studied.

❏ My child spells a word the way it sounds if she doesn’t know its spelling

❏ My child writes for many different purposes and writes different types o

compositions (for example, stories, reports, and letters).

❏ My child makes thoughtful choices about what to include in his writing.

❏ My child takes part in writing conferences, revises and edits what

she has written, and attends to the mechanics of writing (spelling,

capitalization, and punctuation) in her final versions.

❏ My child learns new words and shares them at school and at home.

❏ My child uses clues from the context and his knowledge of word parts

(roots, prefixes, suffixes) to figure out what words mean.

❏ My child is increasing his vocabulary with synonyms and antonyms.

❏ My child uses parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) correctl

❏ My child learns new words through independent reading.

These skills usually develop during grades two and

three. Talk with your child’s teacher if you

have questions.

(over)