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Grade-by-Grade Learning: 2nd Grade
Learn the Lingo
What's a Rubric?
A rubric is a scoring tool that teachers use when evaluating student's work. A teacher creates a rubric by listing the elements that she expects to see in a piece of work and defining how the quality of the work will be assessed. An effective rubric helps teachers and students get a clear picture of the value of the work.
Learning from Experience
Second graders no longer rely solely on their life experiences to learn. Even so, they may have trouble imagining unfamiliar things. This means that a second grader who reads a story about a mountain can create a mental picture if she has seen a mountain in the past. But if she has no idea what a mountain looks like, she might have a difficult time figuring it out, even from a detailed written description.
Processing Information
Children at this age are better at processing information than they were just a year ago. They get riddles, puns, and sarcasm. They can build on the things they know to understand more about them, and to make connections to new concepts. If they’ve been fascinated with spiders in the past, now they can study details of a spider’s anatomy, and then compare it to a praying mantis.
Worries & Pressures
Second graders now begin to care more about how other people see them. They are more likely to worry, be self-critical, and show a lack of confidence in their abilities than they have in the past. The pressures of the peer group begin to take hold — second graders enjoy being considered part of "the group," and dislike being singled out. They may be embarrassed by either praise or criticism that calls attention to them, especially in front of their friends.