Did your child master the skills they need to be ready for next year? Here’s a rough idea of the academic and social-emotional skills that kids acquire in second grade. If your child is not proficient in some of these areas, don’t worry. No two kids are alike, especially when it comes to hitting developmental benchmarks. Choose a few to work on this summer, but keep things low pressure — for you and for your child! Keep in mind the bigger goal, which is helping your child love learning.
By the end of 2nd grade, kids should be able to:
- Concentrate on tasks for longer periods of time (20 to 30 minutes or more).
- Make a plan on how to achieve a personal goal.
- Have a bigger vocabulary (get practice with vocabulary worksheets, 2nd grade academic vocabulary words, and 2nd grade books that boost vocabulary).
- Read aloud fluently and with expression. (Watch an example of a second grader reading fluently with expression.)
- Identify the personality traits of characters in a story.
- Use words to explain their feelings and resolve conflicts.
- Recognize and spell irregularly spelled words, such as because and upon. (Try our 2nd grade spelling lists.)
- Write a letter to a friend or a relative, or a shopping list before going to the grocery story.
- Add and subtract 1- and 2-digit numbers up to 100 (get addition practice).
- Count up to 1,000. (Read more about what kids learn in 2nd grade math.)
- Read and write large numbers (For example: 鈥渘ine thousand, four hundred, twenty-two鈥�. Here’s a worksheet for practice with this skill.)
- Understand the concept of multiplication (for example, that 2 x 3 is two rows of three; get multiplication practice).
- Solve word problems with dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies (get money-math practice).
- Tell time to the nearest 5 minutes (get time-telling practice).
Find out more about your second grader and reading, writing, language arts, math, science, social studies, art, music, and physical education.
