Grade 2 · Alberta
Grade 2: reading to find out
Grade 2 is where the two halves come apart. A child stops learning to read and starts reading to learn, and counting turns into arithmetic within a hundred. This page is for the grown-up: what Alberta asks for, what the words mean, and what to do about it at home.
The five learning areas
Each one starts with what Alberta asks for, defines the words teachers use, and then gives you things to try at home.
English language arts and literature
Reading and writing
Reading to find out rather than reading to practise, spelling that follows patterns, and writing that someone else can follow.
Open reading and writing
Mathematics
Numbers to 100
Place value, adding and subtracting within a hundred, sorting shapes by a rule, measuring in centimetres, and reading a graph.
Open numbers to 100
Science
Looking closely
Choosing materials for a job, light and sound, Canada's land and water, how living things grow, and writing instructions a machine could follow.
Open looking closely
Social studies
Canada
Canada's regions and resources, who leads the country, the heritages people brought and kept, and how trade and transport hold it together.
Open canada
Physical education and wellness
Moving and feeling good
Different levels of effort, carrying a skill from one activity to another, keeping a friendship going, food guidelines, consent, and spending, saving and sharing.
Open moving and feeling good
For the child
21 printable sheets
Printables
Reading strategies, spelling patterns, place value, adding and subtracting within 100, measuring in centimetres, graphs, and Canada's regions.
Print a sheet
3 games
Games
Place Value Builder, Spell Check, Graph It — numbers, words and a bar graph.
Play a game
What changes from Grade 1
Three things, and the first one is the one parents most often miss.
- Reading stops being the goal and becomes the tool. In Grade 1 the work was getting words off the page. In Grade 2 it is understanding what they said — and a child who reads every word correctly and cannot tell you what happened has not finished reading.
- Counting becomes arithmetic. Adding and subtracting within 100 needs place value: knowing that the 3 in 34 is three tens. Regrouping is what makes carrying and borrowing make sense rather than being rules to remember.
- Science asks whether it is the right thing. Grade 1 looked at what a material is like. Grade 2 asks whether it suits the job, is available, and can keep being used — which is design, and it runs through the whole year.
The subjects are the same six as Kindergarten and Grade 1: English language arts and literature, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education and wellness, and fine arts. Fine arts is still taught from the older program of studies, so it is not covered here.
How to use this
- Start with a learning area. Each one gives the actual expectations, then defines the words — place value, regrouping, monitoring, suitability — that teachers use and parents rarely hear explained.
- Try the home ideas. Most take under five minutes and need nothing you do not already own.
- Print a sheet when you want something on paper. Every one has a line of instructions for you at the top and an answer note underneath where an answer exists.
- Hand over a game when you need ten quiet minutes. No account, no advertising, nothing that asks for money.
The expectations above are paraphrased from Alberta Education's New K–6 curriculum fact sheets, which publish a snapshot of each grade rather than the complete program of studies. Alberta's full programs are at alberta.ca/curriculum.