🇺🇸 📖 United States · 2nd Grade
Find out in 12 minutes. Free.
This free 2nd Grade reading test takes about 12 minutes. Your child reads four short stories and articles written for children, answering questions after each one. The texts adapt as they go, and you get an estimated reading level and reading age, plus their strengths across four reading skills, matched to Texas TEKS and the Common Core.
In 2nd Grade, children read longer texts with growing fluency, work out new words from the sentence around them, and start to explain why characters act as they do.
Finding facts and details the text states.
Curriculum: Common Core RL.2.1
Try at home: After reading together, ask your child “who, what, where, when?” questions and let them find the answer in the text.
Working out what words mean from the words around them.
Curriculum: Common Core RL.2.1
Try at home: When your child meets a new word, ask them to guess its meaning from the sentence before you look it up.
Working out what the writer suggests but does not say.
Curriculum: Common Core RL.2.1
Try at home: Ask “how do you think they feel?” and “how do you know?” as you read, so your child links clues in the text.
The main idea, the message and why the text was written.
Curriculum: Common Core RL.2.1
Try at home: At the end of a chapter or article, ask your child to sum it up in one sentence.
This is one of the texts at this level, with some of its questions. The check picks texts that suit your child as they go.
Story
Ruby and her brother Leo wanted a treehouse. Dad said they could build one in the old gum tree, but first they needed a plan.
Ruby drew a picture with a ladder, a window and a flag. Leo counted the boards in the shed.
It took three weekends of measuring, sawing and hammering. When the last nail was in, Ruby climbed up and waved the flag. "Worth the wait!" she shouted.
Where did they build the treehouse?
In the old gum tree. Dad said they could build one in the old gum tree.
In the story, “measuring” means…
finding out how long or big something is. You measure boards before you cut them.
What does “Worth the wait!” tell you about Ruby?
She is glad they took the time to build it. It took three weekends, and Ruby thinks it was worth it.
Start the free 2nd Grade check →
A reading age compares the texts a child can read and understand with what is typical at each age. This check estimates it from the hardest text your child read well. It is a guide, not a formal, standardised score.
Four skills: finding information in a text, working out word meanings, reading between the lines, and understanding the main idea and the writer’s purpose.
Yes. The test and the full report are free, and there is no sign-up to start.
Let them read on their own so the result shows what they can do now. Younger children can have the text read aloud, but then the result is a guide to listening comprehension rather than reading.
Read every day, talk about what you read, and ask questions that go beyond the words on the page, like “why do you think she did that?”. Our report suggests one thing to try for each skill.
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