A Sophisticated Approach

Complex Concepts, Brisk Speed Mark What Once Was the 'Consolidation Year'

Third in an occasional series about the grades that provide the building blocks of a child's education.

On the chalkboard in Isabelle Berges' classroom is the day's schedule, filled with activities for every hour. On the walls are posters with need-to-know subject matter, including a list of math vocabulary -- vertices, faces and lines of symmetry -- how to write for information or persuasion, and the proper use of metaphors and similes, antonyms and synonyms.

This is second grade.

Once it was a time for youngsters to master reading and math skills learned in first grade and prepare for the independent learning traditionally demanded in third grade. But in many public schools across the country, second grade has moved on.

"It used to be seen as a consolidation year, but it doesn't have the luxury of consolidation anymore," said Elizabeth Neale, principal of Silvio O. Conte Community School in Pittsfield, Mass. "The heat is on in second grade in a way that it hasn't been before."

New skills and concepts are being taught, sometimes at near-breakneck speed: Children are asked to write in paragraphs instead of sentences, and teachers lead activities intended as warm-ups for the onslaught of standardized tests that have become the driving force in American public education under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Some educators welcome the changes, saying second-graders had been babied and are capable of doing far more sophisticated work. Today's high expectations are vital for academic progress, they say. Other educators applaud high expectations but question how many second-graders -- most of whom are 7 years old when they start the school year -- are developmentally ready for the new tasks.

"We're asking a lot of our kids in second grade today," said Philip Catania, principal of Mount Rainier Elementary School in Prince George's County, where Berges teaches. "Having high expectations is good. But without question, sometimes we are asking them to do more" than they might be ready to do.

As required by the federal law, which took effect in 2002, all children in public schools take their first standardized test in third grade. Schools risk sanctions if there is no academic improvement among enough children.

"What school district or individual school likes to have their names in the headlines saying they are failing?" said John O'Connor, superintendent of the Dover School District in New Hampshire. "We take steps [in second grade] to avoid that. We teach test-taking skills, and we refine curriculum to mirror more of what is being tested."

As a result, said S. David Brazer, assistant professor in the Education Leadership Program at George Mason University, most kindergarteners now are taught what used to be a first-grade curriculum, and many children are expected to enter primary school knowing how to read. Second-graders are learning lessons that used to be saved for later years, such as multiplication.

Berges, 26, said she must teach math concepts that she didn't learn until fourth and fifth grades. And because there is so much material to cover, she said, she spends warm-up time in the morning going over -- and over -- basic addition and subtraction and other skills, fearing that they are being lost in the rush.