Year 2

At Sacred Heart, we use The Oxford Reading and Writing Criterion to aid us in our assessment of reading and writing skills. 

These criteria describe the reading and writing journey that children make, from their first pre-writing behaviours through to a more complex and sophisticated understanding and mastery of writing skills. The reading and Writing Criterion Scales break down children’s  development into small steps so that it is easy to identify the point children have reached, and the steps they need to make next in order to progress.

Although the criteria are set out in a rough hierarchy, every child’s reading and writing journey is different, so the  Criterion Scales support a ‘best-fit’ teacher judgement against national expectations.

Reading Essential Skills

By the end of Year 2, children should be able to:

• Read most words fluently and accurately without the need for decoding and blending.
• Read unfamiliar words accurately by decoding and blending the sounds, recognising alternative sounds for a range of graphemes.
•  Read words with two or more syllables, using decoding skills and knowledge of syllables to support their reading of longer, unfamiliar words.
•  Read aloud with intonation and expression, taking into account the punctuation.
•  Identify when reading doesn’t make sense and self-correct.
• Use a growing knowledge of vocabulary to gain meaning from texts.
• Make predictions about texts and relate texts to their own experiences.
•   Compare and contrast some texts, giving simple views and explanations.  
• Summarise a story clearly and in sequence.
• Identify the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Writing Essential Skills

Essential Standard 2 skills

The following skills must be secured as a priority in Year 2:

 Produce a paragraph or more of developed ideas independently that can be read without help from the child. The outcome may be more like spoken than written language but must not be a retelling.

 Write one or more sentences extended by the use of ‘and’ or another conjunction and two or more sentences showing the correct use of full stops and capital letters.

 Usually spell most CVC words and most common words from the Reception and Year 1 word lists correctly.

 Produce letter shapes which are mainly accurate, with clear spaces between most words.

Year 2 – end of year expectation

By the end of Year 2, children should be able to:

  Produce close to a side (or more) of A4 writing that is clear and coherent with one or more strong features, responding mainly correctly to stimulus and purpose (not in a retelling, narrative or poem).

  Write sentences which show some variety, at least in the words with which they open, and which include some descriptive language and/or detail, including adjectives, adverbs and associated expanded phrases.

 Use some ambitious words for their age (occasional misuse is acceptable).

 Spell all CVC and most common words on the Year R, 1 and 2 word lists correctly, plus most simple compound words. Spelling of unknown complex words should be phonetically logical.

 Use simple past and present tenses mainly correctly.

 Correctly use three or more different connectives and three or more different types of punctuation, with most sentences demarcated with final punctuation followed by a capital letter.

 Produce handwriting which is controlled, mainly regular in size and becoming neat. There may be evidence of joining.