Reading is the gateway to all learning, and if your child hasn’t mastered reading, you’ll soon see the fallout across all academic subjects. Story problems in math, history textbooks, lab instructions in science—these all require proficient reading.
It’s a common myth that struggling readers will improve with enough time and exposure to more reading materials. But these students don’t just need more reading. They need systematic, immersive practice with foundational reading skills.
At The Academy of Scholars, we believe in teaching research-backed reading fundamentals on a daily basis, and we start this at the pre-K level. We also believe in assessing students along the way to make sure they’re keeping up with the standards. And if students are starting to fall behind, we believe in intervening quickly and proactively to get kids back on track with reading mastery.
Why 2nd Grade Reading Interventions Matter
Intentional, strategic reading instruction is important no matter the age of the student, but it is especially critical for second graders in light of what they’re about to face: an avalanche of multi-syllable words! By the third grade, students are expected to know all kinds of “big” words, and struggling readers will begin to fall back from the pack.
Here’s why. When a student has trouble sounding out words, they often rely on their memory to get them by. When we test struggling readers, we often see that they can rattle off a long list of familiar words because they have memorized them. However, if we put an unfamiliar word in front of the same students, they will usually resort to guessing rather than strategically sounding out the word.
A good memory can keep struggling readers flying under the radar. They seem to know all of the common words, allowing them to hide the fact that they don’t have the tools to make sense of new words. But when third grade hits, their cover is blown. Even the best memorizers will drown in the giant ocean of multi-syllable words, from “crucible” to “cacophany” to “convivial.” Suddenly, kids who have done fine in past years are landing in the lowest reading group and feeling bad about themselves as their parents wonder what happened.
Fortunately, this is not an inevitable fate. At The Academy of Scholars, our reading interventions for second graders here on our Decatur campus make sure that your child is ready to face advanced reading armed with the needed skills.
What Sets The Academy of Scholars’ Reading Curriculum Apart?
Our second grade reading interventions are among Atlanta’s best thanks to these features:
Research-based
We pride ourselves on having a curriculum built on the most current research. There are many approaches to reading, and some are more effective than others. Research makes clear, for example, that certain elements, such as phonemic awareness instruction, are indispensable when it comes to teaching children to read.
Our curriculum is not based on hunches or tradition. It is backed by robust data that shows what works for producing accurate and fluent readers. Something as critical as reading should not be left to guesswork.
Phonemic Awareness
A phoneme is a speech sound. For example, when you hear the word “gate,” you are hearing three phonemes: /g/ /ae/ /t/. In order to read, you must see the letters on the page and determine which speech sounds they “translate” into. That is the key to making what you see on paper match what you say when you read the word.
While some people are born with strong phonemic awareness, others must develop it through practice. Studies now show that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of success in beginning reading. As such, no reading program should be without it.
At The Academy of Scholars, even our pre-K students get daily practice with phonemic awareness—and that continues through the grade levels until it becomes a natural process for all of our young readers. This skill is a key component of our second-grade reading curriculum and prepares students to segue naturally into multi-syllable reading instruction.
Phonics
Phonics is different than phonemic awareness but also essential. Phonics deals with letter-to-sound correspondence. For example, phonics instruction helps students understand the rules of the English language (such as why the E at the end of the word “case” will change the way that vowel is pronounced and why /ie/ and /igh/ make the same sound).
We work phonics alongside phonemic awareness so that students firmly grasp the interplay between letters and the sounds they make.
Comprehension
Decoding words is important but only insomuch as it allows students to gain meaning from the text they read. While we’re teaching students to sound out words, we’re also helping them understand what they’re reading through instruction on vocabulary, parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives), components of story development, and more.
Our second grade reading comprehension curriculum uses rich, high-quality reading materials that are interesting to students and relevant to their lives. This not only helps kids develop a love of reading but also allows them to make meaningful connections to what they are reading.
Frequent Practice for Skills Mastery
While many schools teach correct reading principles, they don’t provide students with enough opportunities to practice those skills. This does students little good because they can’t internalize principles that they need to read fluently. Our curriculum is set up so that students get daily practice on key skills for as long as they need to master those skills. This system allows for increased autonomy as students become independent, self-correcting readers.
Diagnostics
When you’re tutoring one child, you can easily assess how well they are grasping the basics of reading. But in a classroom setting, this can be more difficult. That’s why diagnostics are so important. At The Academy of Scholars, we regularly measure students’ progress on key benchmarks. This allows us to intervene appropriately to help students stay on top of the skills they need for reading mastery. Frequent use of good diagnostic tools keeps kids from “falling through the cracks.”
Trained Faculty
Just because a teacher wants to teach students to read doesn’t mean that he or she is trained to do so. Too many college education programs teach would-be teachers the theory behind reading instruction without teaching the actual methods for effective reading instruction. At The Academy of Scholars, we solve this problem by training our teachers to administer our research-backed reading curriculum.
Our teachers not only know the “whys” behind reading mastery but exactly how to teach key reading principles on a daily basis and how to intervene when students are falling behind.
Curriculum Consistency
Because our faculty is intensively trained in our reading curriculum, there’s consistency in reading instruction between classes and grade levels. One grade picks up seamlessly where the other leaves off without instructional gaps.
Is Your 2nd Grader Ready to Read?
Whether or not reading comes naturally to your second grader, we will equip them with the tools they need to become proficient readers. If they are falling behind, we will identify it through our diagnostic tools and begin interventions to get help them meet and exceed grade-level benchmarks. We will work with them individually or in small groups to strengthen what is weak, whether it be phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, reading comprehension, or fluency.
If you’re looking for unparalleled reading instruction for second graders here in Decatur, contact The Academy of Scholars. The proof is in our track record. We’ve helped countless students learn to love and excel at reading, and we look forward to doing the same for your child.