Reading Standards for Informational Text
Key Ideas and Details
- Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
- Identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text.
- Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.
- Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 2 topic or subject area.
- Know and use various text features (e.g., captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently.
- Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.
- Explain how specific images (e.g., a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text.
- Describe how reasons support specific points the author makes in a text.
- Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic.
- By the end of year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 2–3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
Text Types and Purposes
- Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section.
- Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts, and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section.
- Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events; include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings; use temporal words to signal event order; and provide a sense of closure.
- With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.
- With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.
- Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations).
- Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
Comprehension and Collaboration
- Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
- Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).
- Build on others’ talk in conversations by linking their comments to the remarks of others.
- Ask for clarification and further explanation as needed about the topics and texts under discussion.
- Seek to understand and communicate with individuals from different cultural backgrounds.
- Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.
- Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify comprehension, gather additional information, or deepen understanding of a topic or issue.
- Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences.
- Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
- Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.
A. Gathering, Using, and Interpreting Evidence
- Develop questions about the community.
- Recognize different forms of evidence used to make meaning in social studies (including sources such as art and photographs, artifacts, oral histories, maps, and graphs).
- Identify and explain creation and/or authorship, purpose, and format for evidence.
- Identify arguments of others.
- Recognize arguments and identify evidence.
- Create an understanding of the past by using primary and secondary sources.
- Retell a community event in sequential order.
- Understand the concept of time measurements including minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years.
- Identify causes and effects using examples from his/her family life or from the community.
- Identify change over time in his/her community.
- Identify events of the past, present, and future in his/her community.
- Recognize and identify patterns of continuity and change in his/her community.
- Identify similarities and differences between communities.
- Identify similarities and differences between his/her community and other communities.
- Describe an event in his/her community.
- Recognize the relationships between geography, economics, and history in his/her community.
- Describe a historical development in his/her community with specific details including time and place.
- Ask geographic questions about where places are located and why they are located there using geographic representations such as maps and models. Describe where places are in relation to each other and describe connections among places.
- Distinguish human activities and human-made features from “environments” (natural events or physical features—land, air, and water—that are not directly made by humans).
- Describe how his/her actions affect the environment of the community; describe how the environment of the community affects human activities.
- Recognize a process that applies to population and a resulting pattern.
- Describe how human activities alter places in a community.
- Explain how scarcity necessitates decision making; identify the benefits and costs of decisions.
- Describe the resources used to produce goods and provide services in the local community.
- Describe the role of banks, saving, and borrowing in the economy.
- Describe the goods and services that people in the local community produce and those that are produced in other communities.
- Identify goods and services that government provides; explore the concept of taxes.
- Demonstrate respect for the rights of others in discussions and classroom debates regardless of whether one agrees with the other viewpoint.
- Participate in activities that focus on a classroom, school, or community issue or problem.
- Identify different political systems.
- Identify the role of the individual in classroom, school, and community participation.
- Show respect in issues involving differences and conflict; participate in negotiating and compromising in the resolution of differences and conflict.
- Identify situations in which social actions are required.
- Identify the governor of New York, the president of the United States, and the school principal and their leadership responsibilities.
- Identify rights and responsibilities within the classroom, school, and community.
“My Community and Other Communities” is organized into five units of study: Individual Development and Cultural Identity; Civic Ideals and Practices; Geography, Humans, and the Environment; Time, Continuity, and Change; and Economic Systems.These units represent five of the unifying themes of social studies and may be presented in any order.
Students study their local community and learn about characteristics that define urban, suburban, and rural communities. Democratic principles and participation in government are introduced. Interaction with the environment and changes to the environment and their impact are examined. The concept of change over time and examining cause and effect are introduced. Students will examine the availability of resources and the interdependence within and across communities.
Individual Development and Cultural Identity
2.1 A community is a population of various individuals in a common location. It can be characterized as urban, suburban, or rural. Population density and use of the land are some characteristics that define and distinguish types of communities.
2.1a An urban community, or city, is characterized by dense population and land primarily occupied by buildings and structures used for residential and business purposes.
2.1b Suburban communities are on the outskirts of cities, where human population is less dense, and buildings and homes are spaced farther apart.
2.1c Rural communities are characterized by a large expanse of open land and significantly lower populations than urban or suburban areas.
- Students will identify the characteristics of urban, suburban, and rural communities and determine in which type of community they live.
- By discussing different types of housing (apartment, single-family house, etc.) and the proximity of houses to each other, students will understand the term “population density” and how it applies to different communities.
- Students will identify activities that are available in each community type and discuss how those activities affect the people living in that community.
2.2a People living in urban, suburban, and rural communities embrace traditions and celebrate holidays that reflect both diverse cultures and a common community identity.
- Students will examine the ethnic and/or cultural groups represented in their classroom.
- Students will explore the cultural diversity of their local community by identifying activities that have been introduced by different culture groups.
- Students will identify community events that help promote a common community identity.
- Students will explore how different ideas, talents, perspectives, and culture are shared across their community.
2.3 The United States is founded on the principles of democracy, and these principles are reflected in all types of communities.
2.3a The United States is founded on the democratic principles of equality, fairness, and respect for authority and rules.
- Students will explore democratic principles such as dignity for all, equality, fairness, and respect for authority and rules, and how those principles are applied to their community.
- Students will examine the ways in which the government in their community provides order and keeps people safe and how citizens can demonstrate respect for authority.
- Students will learn about the process of voting and what opportunities adults in the community have for participation.
- Students will participate in voting within the classroom and in school as appropriate.
- Students will examine the symbols of the country including the eagle, American flag, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and Mount Rushmore.
2.4a Communities have the responsibility to make and enforce fair laws and rules that provide for the common good.
- Students will explain the importance of making fair laws and rules, the benefits of following them, and the consequences of violating them.
- Students will identify who makes and enforces the rules and laws in their community. They will also explore how leaders make and enforce these rules and laws.
- Students will explore opportunities to provide service to their school community and the community at large (e.g., beautifying school grounds, writing thank-you notes to helpers).
- Students will identify how adults can provide service to the school and the community at large.
2.5 Geography and natural resources shape where and how urban, suburban, and rural communities develop and how they sustain themselves.
2.5a Urban, suburban, and rural communities can be located on maps, and the geographic characteristics of these communities can be described using symbols, map legends, and geographic vocabulary.
- Students will locate their communities on maps and/or globes.
- Students will examine how land within a community is used and classify land use as “residential” (used for housing), “industrial” (used to make things), “commercial” (used to provide services), and “recreational” (where people play or do sports).
- Students will create maps including maps that represent their classroom, school, or community, and maps that illustrate places in stories.
- Students will compare how different communities in their state or nation have developed and explain how physical features of the community affect the people living there.
- Students will explore how humans have positively and negatively impacted the environment of their community though such features as roads, highways, buildings, bridges, shopping malls, railroads, and parks.
- Students will describe the means people create for moving people, goods, and ideas in their communities.
- Students will use a compass rose to identify cardinal (North, South, East, West) and intermediate (Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest) directions on maps and in their community.
- Students will locate the equator, northern and southern hemispheres, and poles on a globe.
- Students will use maps and legends to identify major physical features such as mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans of the local community, New York, and the nation.
2.6 Identifying continuities and changes over time can help understand historical developments.
2.6a Continuities and changes over time in communities can be described using historical thinking, vocabulary, and tools such as time lines.
2.6b Continuities and changes over time in communities can be examined by interpreting evidence such as maps, population charts, photographs, newspapers, biographies, artifacts, and other historical materials.
- Students will examine continuities and changes over time in their community using evidence such as maps, population charts, photographs, newspapers, biographies, artifacts, and other historical materials.
- Students will develop a time line for their community including important events, such as when the school was built.
2.7a Cause-and-effect relationships help us understand the changes in communities.
- Students will distinguish between cause and effect and will examine changes in their community in terms of cause and effect (e.g., automobiles and the growth of suburbs, growing population in suburban areas, and reduction of farms).
2.8 Communities face different challenges in meeting their needs and wants.
2.8a The availability of resources to meet basic needs varies across urban, suburban, and rural communities.
- Students will investigate what resources are available in their community and what resources are obtained from neighboring communities.
- Students will examine how available resources differ in communities (e.g., home-grown food available in rural farm areas vs. shopping in supermarkets).
- Students will explore economic decision making and the use of money.
- Students will examine how consumers react to changes in the prices of goods.
- Students will explore the purpose of taxes and how they are collected in their community.
2.9a Goods are the products a person or group of people makes. Services are actions performed by a person or group of people with a certain skill.
- Students will distinguish between goods and services and identify goods produced in their community.
- Students will identify different types of jobs performed in their community.
- Students will explain the services provided by community workers.
- Students will explore how communities share resources and services with other communities.
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