Benchmark Books and Indicators - Second Grade:FALL

Ant City
By Annette Smith
Turquoise Level
DRA Level: 18

Text Characteristics

  • Font size and spacing are less important now.
  • Sentences are longer and readers will need to put their words together in order to take in more of the sentence at a time. When they’re stuck, it’s often helpful to nudge them to reread and try again.
  • A more complex story; with a beginning, middle, and end.
  • Words are still supported by illustrations, but students need to search more in the picture to find help in reading the words.
  • Sentences are more varied, resulting in texts that include a full range of punctuation.
  • These books begin to have a simple plot and less patterned.

Reader Behaviors

  • Gets mouth ready for the initial sound of a word.
  • Rereads and self-corrects.
  • Uses left to right directionality as well as a return sweep to another line of print.
  • Uses picture cues.
  • Monitors for meaning: checks to make sure it makes sense.
  • Read with some fluency.
  • Cross checks on cue against another. (example: sounds it out, checks to see if it makes sense, looks at the picture)