Second Grade, Reading, Set Seven

We are using Meet Thomas Jefferson by Marvin Barrett for our reading book. It has eighteen very short chapters and is in the Step-Up Books series.

Comprehension Skills
This set focuses on oral reading. K. has always hated putting expression in what she reads, but I picked up a dvd of the StoryWatchers Club, which has four or five storytellers telling stories to a group of children. She enjoyed it, and wants to learn to tell stories (which is something I had already planned for third grade). Anyway, now she is reading with more expression, and even when we recite our Bible verses she is using expression.

To practice oral skills, we are focusing on diction and obeying the punctuation. Since Thanksgiving is near, I pulled out a book of Thanksgiving poems that we are reading aloud to each other.

From Games for Reading:

• See it - Name it -- we played this on our nature walk
• Zip Cards (pg 72) -- in our last set of weeks, one skill we were working on was reading in phrases. This game reinforces that. There are a list of two or three word phrases to copy on to 3 x 5 cards. First, you go through them to make sure your child knows all the words. Next, you flip through the cards quickly seeing how fast they can read them. I also put the phrases of a couple Thanksgiving poems on accordion folded paper to flip through.
• Picture Labels -- we actually did a variation of this game, combining it with Race of Words from Games for Writing. I had a picture from an old calendar and we each wrote a list of all the things we could find in the picture.