Skip to main content
Indiana Standards

Indiana 2nd Grade ELA Standards

All 31 Indiana English language arts standards for 2nd grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Indiana Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

31 standards

Reading Foundations

4 standards
2.RF.1
Use the six main syllable types to sound out two-syllable words on their own, like rab-bit, gar-den and ta-ble.
2.RF.2
Use short and long vowel sounds, including vowel teams like ea and oa, to read regular one-syllable words like hop, hope and boat.
2.RF.3
Sound out longer words made of a base word with prefixes and suffixes, and read contractions, possessives and compound words, like unkindly, can’t and puppy’s.
2.RF.4
Read decodable and second-grade or harder books aloud at a good pace, accurately and with expression.

Reading Comprehension

12 standards
2.RC.1
Show they understand a text by asking and answering questions about its central point and the details that matter most.
2.RC.2
Retell how a story begins, unfolds and ends, including fables and folktales from many cultures, and figure out its message, lesson or moral.
2.RC.3
Describe how story characters react to big events and how their choices shape what happens, like a lie that leads to trouble.
2.RC.4
Describe how a story is built, with a beginning that sets things up, a middle where the action happens and an ending that wraps it up.
Common Core RL.2.5
2.RC.5
Notice that characters can see things differently, and recognize dialogue as the words characters say, usually set inside quotation marks.
2.RC.6
Find the main idea of a text with several paragraphs and tell what each paragraph is about.
2.RC.7
Use text features like the table of contents, index, headings and captions to find key facts, and explain how they make a text clearer.
2.RC.8
Identify when a nonfiction text compares two things, explains how to do something step by step, or shows a cause and its effect.
2.RC.9
Describe the facts an author gives to back up particular points in a text, like numbers showing how many crops bees help grow.
2.RC.10
Read two informational texts on one topic, like two books about volcanoes, and tell where their most important points agree and where they differ.
Common Core RI.2.9
2.RC.11
Figure out unknown words using clues from nearby words and sentences and text features like headings and the table of contents.
2.RC.12
Tell how words are related, including simple synonyms and antonyms and words with more than one meaning, like duck the bird and duck down.

Writing

8 standards
2.W.1
Write neatly, shaping each letter correctly and leaving even spaces between words and between sentences.
2.W.2
Write opinion pieces that state a view, give several reasons linked by words like because and also, argue for a course of action, and end with a conclusion.
2.W.3
Write informative pieces that introduce a topic and its main idea, share facts and details about it, and end with a closing sentence.
2.W.4
Write stories with a beginning, middle and end, using time words like first of all and later, and details about actions, thoughts and feelings.
2.W.5
Plan by drawing and brainstorming, revise with help, edit for spelling, capitals, grammar and punctuation, give feedback to other writers, and publish with technology.
2.W.6
With help, research a topic of interest, like frogs, using picture and print sources, then organize, sum up and present the facts in a chosen format.
2.W.7
Speak and write with many kinds of nouns and pronouns, irregular plurals like mice, past forms like ran, action and linking verbs, adjectives, adverbs and full sentences.
2.W.8
Capitalize names, holidays, places, months and days, use end marks, apostrophes, and commas in letters, dates and lists, and spell vowel patterns and tricky words.

Communication and Collaboration

7 standards
2.CC.1
Join second-grade conversations about topics and texts with classmates and adults, like a small-group talk about a science book or a whole-class discussion.
2.CC.2
Listen to others, take turns respectfully, and talk one person at a time about the topic or book being discussed.
2.CC.3
Ask for more explanation when something about the topic or text being discussed is unclear, like asking a classmate what they meant.
2.CC.4
Question a speaker and respond to their questions to make sure they understand, gather facts, or dig deeper into a topic, like after a guest talk.
2.CC.5
Put together simple presentations that stay on one topic, using pictures, props or other media when helpful to make ideas and feelings clearer.
2.CC.6
Give and follow spoken directions with three or more steps, like get out a book, turn to page ten, and read the first line.
2.CC.7
Recognize that media like TV, websites and books can inform, entertain, persuade, explain events, and pass on culture.

The official Indiana documents

The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Indiana's standards, not the official wording, which Indiana Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.