Second graders (typically ages seven and eight) love to play, interact with family and friends, and explore. As they grow older and progress from first grade, they form stronger opinions around the books they choose to read. They have a strong desire for engagement with text through laughing and empathizing, and they place great value in relating to characters.
In the classroom, second graders build on all of the phonics learned from first grade and begin to study more challenging words, learning to decode suffixes, contractions, word families and more multi-syllabic words.
Early Second Grade
The Quick Stats for each book lists highly decodable (all short vowel words, common suffixes attached to base words, suffixes -ly, -le, -en,-et, -er and word families -ild, -ost, -igh, -ight), sight words and challenge words (irregular base words with -er, -ed,-ing endings, two- and three-syllable words with different syllable types, more complex word families and words with the “schwa” sound.
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In all five books in the Max & Mo series, Max and Mo collaborate to devise solutions to their problems. As classroom hamsters, they have access to glue, tape, pencils and more. They use these supplies and other various tools to problem solve through trial and error.
The text is lush with dialogue and will give readers an opportunity to read with expression. The last pages of each book include fun activities related to each story which readers will love.
Quick stats: 242 words total, 104 unique. 101 highly decodable and 3 challenge words (cottage, cried, tomorrow).
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Cork is a muskrat and Fuzz is a possum. They eat different foods and are interested in playing different games. But in an embarrassing moment near the book’s end, they discover something they have in common: they both collect beautiful rocks. Throughout Cork & Fuzz series, though each animal approaches life in different ways, their friendship prevails.
The Cork & Fuzz books are chapter books with text that is highly decodable, but at the same time, offers a challenge to young readers; 80 words in the book are two or more syllables. There is much dialogue between characters. These books uniquely offer readers the chance to learn vocabulary related to the natural world. Readers will also learn a lot about possums and muskrats - for example, possums play dead when they’re scared, and muskrats have a vegetarian diet and like cattails, roots and seeds.
Though Cork & Fuzz is fictional, there is informative text woven throughout. Follow up by researching more about possums and muskrats and the other animals they meet along the way.
Quick stats: 895 words total, 251 unique. 236 highly decodable, 15 challenge words (afraid, because, began, behind, buzzard, caterpillar, collect, disappeared, echo, explain, guess, interesting, okay, pretend, surprised).
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Crabby is almost always crabby but Plankton is persistent in his quest to make crabby smile. Though Crabby doesn’t break often, readers will! Those who can interpret sarcasm will be especially drawn to Fenske’s humor. The illustrations will captivate the reader’s interest and help readers to see the emotions each character experiences.
The text is mostly written in speech bubbles between characters. Words are mostly highly decodable. Readers will have a chance to encounter vocabulary words related to sea life – dunes, plankton, barnacle. And with regard to specific words Fenske has chosen, readers might think about how a crab ‘scuttles’ rather than ‘walks.’
As with other books in the Acorn series by Scholastic, the last page contains a “You Can Draw” section where readers will have a chance to draw a character step by step.
Quick stats: 656 words total, 195 unique. 181 highly decodable, 14 challenge (alright, around, barnacle, because, chocolate, choices, enough, ocean, okay, prefer, probably, promise, reason, record).
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Within this series, readers will feel empowered with possibility as they travel along with Princess Truly throughout her adventures. She creates inventions, travels the world and places a high value on self-confidence and friendship.
Readers will also love that the text rhymes and has a fluent flow. The sentences are clear and concise but also loaded with multisyllabic words like celebrate, anything and mighty. The writing shifts from current and future tense to past tense; readers will get extra practice with suffix endings
Quick stats: 416 words total, 195 unique. 185 highly decodable and 10 challenge words (across, afraid, balloons, begin, believe, celebrate, hero, noodles, power, super).
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Pete the Cat suits up with fins, a mask and an air tank to dive down deep into the ocean. He’s looking for a seahorse but finds a swordfish, angelfish, blowfish, jellyfish and more along the way. Just before climbing back aboard the boat, he finally finds a seahorse!
The book is 32 pages with two to three sentences per page. The book takes place in the present tense with many verbs that end in s such as “tickles” and “feels” and “wishes.” Readers should be able to quickly recognize this suffix s and es. Readers should also be ready to tackle multisyllabic words. There are many compound words as well, so readers can use their knowledge of the single syllable words to tackle larger ones such as seahorse, swordfish, jellyfish and blowfish.
Quick stats: 362 words total, 150 unique. 144 highly decodable and 6 challenge words (captain, colorful, except, octopus, scuba, surprise).
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When a new dancer shows up in Mia’s studio, she doesn’t know quite what to think. Sarah listens to the teacher but also adds her own step into each dance step. Just when Mia and her friends think Sarah is in the wrong, their dance teacher quickly steps in to celebrate differences rather than reject them.
As much as the dance moves in this book are varied, so too are the words. There are 320 words total in the book, of which almost half are unique. Readers will need to pay close attention to suffixes as the text often shifts from words with -ed, -ing, -er, -es,-ly.
Quick stats: 370 total, 140 unique. 139 highly decodable and 1 challenge word (gallop).
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While making plans, April and Mae quickly realize they have different intentions around the sleepover. April wants to sleep outdoors, but Mae is less than excited about roughing it in the dark backyard. April does just about everything she can to make her friend more comfortable.
Author Megan Lambert wrote one book in this series for each day of the week, and she imagines that this topic is a perfect book for Friday. Throughout the series, these friends show that friendship is all about empathy, kindness and compromise.
Quick stats: 814 total, 225 unique. 220 highly decodable and 5 challenge words (almost, awake, okay, quiet, though).
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Author Grace Lin won a Theodor Geisel Honor for the first book in this series – Not Exactly the Same. Each of the three books is broken in to chapters and clearly listed in the table of contents. The chapters are concise with extremely funny aspects.
Ling and Ting are both likeable and relatable kids. At the same time, they invite us into some of their home experiences, including using chopsticks and making dumplings. After reading, readers will be inspired to read more and make some of the things they’ve read about.
The amazing and talented Grace Lin also wrote Dim Sum for Everyone as well as the Newbery Honor book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.
Quick stats: 850 total, 209 unique. 194 highly decodable and 15 challenge (abracadabra, because, Chinese, couldn’t, decide, during, exactly, hocus, library, magic,, money, okay, pocus, remember, shazam).
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In Kick It Mo! the reader will feel suspense build as Mo’s team seeks to score a goal. Mo isn’t able to contribute much because he gets tired easily … until he ends up scoring the game-winning goal.
There are 517 words total in the book but less than a third are unique. The top twenty words comprise about half of the total text, which will free up the reader to focus attention on more difficult words. Readers will have a chance to practice -er and -ed endings.
Quick stats: 517 total, 152 unique. 148 highly decodable and 4 challenge words (almost, behind, practice, toward).
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Written in 1957, The Cat in the Hat has sold over ten million copies and has spawned the creation of two movies, multiple television shows and several games. Dr. Seuss wrote the book in response to the more boring Dick & Jane primers geared toward first and second graders.
Dr. Seuss used words that readers could sound out phonetically rather than having to rely on automatic word recognition. He also aimed to deliver a more exciting book that young readers couldn’t put down. And many young readers could argue that he did just that!
In this story, the frisky Cat invites himself into the house of Sally and her brother to shake things up while their mom is away. Their fish begs them not to partake but the persistent Cat and his comrades Thing One and Thing Two take over!
Dr. Seuss used many high frequency words and monosyllabic words. The words on each page often rhyme, which parallels the playful nature of the Cat himself. The book is 61 pages long and can be broken up into several readings.
Quick stats: 1625 total and 242 unique words - all of which are highly decodable for this point in second grade.
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Together, they venture out into nature and figure out crafty ways to bring color into the day. Though the text in this book includes short and simple sentence, Bolling’s descriptive text shines through. The author even elucidates the rain sounding like thunder.
At 544 words, Rainbow Days is on the longer end, and is divided into a short story format. The text is highly decodable for this grade level but will provide some readers with challenges to decode longer words such as “dandelion” and “everything.” Readers will need to pull together all phonetic knowledge of r-controlled vowels, word families and vowel teams to decode many two-syllable words like “sparkle” and “window.”
Quick stats: 544 words total, 206 unique. 201 highly decodable and 5 challenge (angels, colorful, dandelions, necklace, scissors).
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In Chicken on a Broom, Zoey bravely rescues Mouse’s mask so they can go to a Halloween party. The story is entertaining and suspenseful; readers will be on the edge of their seats as the animals have to creep into an old barn to find the mask.
Author Adam Lehrhaupt’s writing is lush with dialogue and expressions. Readers need to think about what it might mean for something to be “fully equipped” or for Zoey to be off before another character can find her.
There are 416 words in total and the most frequent words make up a third of the text. This means readers will be able to focus attention on the detailed vocabulary words. In this particular book, readers will see words related to Halloween such as costume, haunted, vampire and dangerous.
Quick stats: 416 words total, 156 unique. 148 highly decodable and 8 challenge (already, aside, avoid, costumes, dangerous, protect, rewards, through).
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Hi! Fly Guy is the first book of the Fly Guy series. The main character, Buzz, meets Fly Guy and become fast friends and virtually inseparable. Arnold’s writing throughout the series includes puns, lush vocabulary words and humor. Young readers will like that this book is an early chapter book. There are many compound words in the book like something and friendship. Additionally, many verbs are past tense. There are some challenging words such as beautiful, heaviest, surprised.
Quick stats: 335 words total, 117 unique. 112 words highly decodable and 5 challenge words (award, beautiful, caught, minute, surprised).
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Sometimes big feelings can be overwhelming, and young readers will be put at ease reading about others who also experience them. In addition to the wonderful focus on emotional intelligence, Carbone’s writing is incredibly vivid. In This Makes Me Jealous, which centers on, you guessed it, jealousy, she uses simile and metaphor. The main character in this book feels “as prickly as a cactus.”
In total this book includes 244 words, of which half appear just once in the book. The limited number of words per page and simple sentences will help the reader to focus on decoding many words in the past tense and absorbing the wonderful vocabulary.
Quick stats: 244 words total, 128 unique. 124 highly decodable and 4 challenge words (Amy, during, jealous, recess).
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Readers will relate to Harry as he feels nervous about the various activities in this book series –swimming underwater, a sleepover in an outdoor tent or visitng the doctor. And readers will also love Hedgehog as his empathy toward Harry shines through and prompts him to think of solutions. Each book is incredibly witty within the text and pictures. These books are written in a graphic novel format.
Readers may love the last page of the book which includes step-by-step instructions explaining how to draw Hedgehog.
Quick stats: 558 words total, 178 unique. 168 highly decodable with 10 challenge words (afraid, behind, blanket, brought, guess, idea(s), promise, secret, surprise).
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Inside Scouts Sanjay and Viv have the superpower to become very small, which they use to shrink and travel inside of various mammals to fix them from the inside out. In The Inside Scout Help the Kind Lion (the first book in the series) the scouts gather their tools and fix the lion’s leaky heart. The book offers readers the chance to learn about the circulatory system, including a wonderful “fun facts” section; illustrations include labeled drawings that will help readers to visualize a four-chambered heart.
The text includes wonderful STEM-related vocabulary words such as valve and heartbeat.
Quick stats: 569 words total, 182 unique. 176 highly decodable and 6 challenge words (figure, moving, power, problem, remember, super).
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The Unicorn and Yeti series includes longer books, but which have fewer words per page and are divided into three sections. The books have a graphic novel/cartoon quality to them that is sure to entertain, and may prove to be good choices for reading over the summer or while in the car.
Quick stats: 855 words total, 224 unique. 213 highly decodable and 11 challenge words (already, amazing, because, colorful, except, fancy, idea, probably, problems, protect, super).
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Pedro is a brother, son, friend, student, athlete and nature enthusiast. He is motivated to try new things, but just like any kid, he also faces worries and insecurities. Each book in the Pedro series toes the line of unique circumstances and the thoughts and feelings behind them. In the end, Pedro often gets to where he needs to be with the help of his determination, family and friends.
In the first book in the series, Pedro’s Big Goal, Pedro must try out to be the goalie. Roddy, a tough teammate with a big attitude, boasts about how he undoubtedly will win the spot. Despite wanting to give up and throw in the towel, Pedro perseveres and ultimately wins the goalie spot.
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