Grade 2 is the fluency year. Here is what CAPS expects, and how to help your child move from word-by-word reading to smooth sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Grade 2, the hard-won decoding of Grade 1 starts turning into real reading. The CAPS curriculum shifts focus to trickier sound patterns, longer texts, and \u2014 most of all \u2014 fluency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade 2 phonics covers digraphs (‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’), vowel teams (‘ee’, ‘oa’, ‘ai’), and word endings like ‘-ing’ and ‘-ed’. Children learn that two letters often make one sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fluency \u2014 reading smoothly, at a comfortable pace, with expression \u2014 is what frees the brain to understand. The best fluency builder is re-reading: the same short book three or four times until it flows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aim for a little every day. Ten minutes of reading aloud to you beats an hour of silence once a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ask about every story: who, what, why, what next? Reading for meaning is the goal South Africa most needs to fix, as PIRLS 2021 showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n