What Your Second Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Second Grade Education Revised (The Core Knowledge Series)

The author/ Editor E.D. Hirsh Jr. has compiled every well-known fact in American culture such as literature, slogans, sayings, history, math and all other subjects that a child of a particular age or "grade" should know. There are 7 volumes in all from Kindergarten to 6th grade.

The premise of this book was to create a national standard so that children in the same grade are learning the same things at the same time be it from classroom to classroom, or from state to state. In the books Introduction, Hirsh explains how a parent of twins were concerned that they were learning completely different things and thus were both getting different and abbreviated educations with many gaps. He believes that it is "a sign of trouble when teachers in that school do not know what children in other classrooms are learning on the same grade level, much less in earlier and later grades".

I can identify with Hirsh's concerns as a parent who has moved from state to state across the US. My son was in 3 schools in 3 years and as far as I could tell, repeated Kindergarten 3 times with few exceptions. When he finally got to a school that was up to par with the 1st school he attended, he was lost. So having a unifying curriculum across the United States is very helpful. As this book has been widely acclaimed and used in public and private schools across the country , I believe it will be very useful to me and my children as we embark upon our homeshooling career.

To date this is the only book of its kind written for public schools, and though there are suggested curriculums for homeschooling parents, there are so many camps and methods available, that unifying is not possible.
I am a little wary of the whole concept of a unified curriculum because our children are not machines to feed information to at predestined intervals in order to come out with a good finished product. Instead they are individual human beings, all with differing strengths and abilities, and I don't feel all children should be restricted to learning the same thing. Of course this is how the problem started in the first place, because just as all children are different, so are all teachers. So we are stuck with an interesting catch 22. Using this book as a starting ground and allowing a student to go into further depth on subjects that interest him or her can best resolve this conflict.

The Book "What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know" has already become a favorite in my home and is a great building block to use not only after, but also in conjunction with the Kindergarten volume. I have found that this book repeats much of the material in the Kindergarten book reinforcing popular knowledge while including it for anyone who may have missed this information in the lower grades. It then builds upon this knowledge by adding more. This is most evident in the literature section where we see things we have already read in the Kindergarten books along with many new treasures. For the Literature sections at least you could skip some levels and not miss anything because of the repetitive nature of the series. In subjects like math and science however, it may be necessary to use the books chronologically in order to build upon a Childs knowledge from year to year.

Contents of the First grade book include, but are not limited to:

Language arts witch includes: Nursery rhymes, poems, Aesop's Fables, and short stories.
Geography, world civilization, and American Civilization,
A deeper understanding of fine arts, including, books, and musical arts
Math from counting to fractions to using the calculator
Science with the same subjects as before on a deeper more involved level

When I purchased this book, I thought it would serve mostly as our curriculum for the upcoming years, but instead I have found a great resource and guide as to where to start. I believe these books will help to make my children's interests more evident and inspire them to concentrate on the areas they are passionate about.

I purchased these books in anticipation of beginning homeschooling, but we could not wait to get started on this series. I recommend this and the other books in this set to anyone considering homeschooling or even school schooling

I agree with previous reviews (e.g. review by Kathryn Behm). Core Knowledge "What Your ?st Grader Needs To Know" books need quizzes and worksheets to help the students retain the learned information.

Here is a website that provides quizzes and worksheets based on Core Knowledge Curriculums:
http://www.kwizNET.com/

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   Written on April 2, 2003
   Summary: Good material, but could be expanded upon
This book (and I've been purchasing all in the series) delivers what it promises - the content of material a 2nd grader should be taught throughout the year.

What I think could make a great book even better, is if the book would also deliver more advice and suggestions on how a parent should go about delivering and enforcing the supplemental material. Activities, quizzes, and worksheets about the topics presented would help the child maintain the information.

I've found that the "tips" on how parents should help their children given in the introduction to each section have decreased with each year in the book series. There was a lot more information given in the introductions for the kindergarten and first grade books than there is in the second grade book.

I will definitely buy the rest of the series, but I will probably have to come up with ways to enforce the material presented on my own. Which is fine -- the book doesn't promise to do this, it would just be an even better book if it did.

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   Written on September 9, 2001
   Summary: Great Book for the Minivan!
We keep the age appropriate book for each of our boys in the car. They'll read anything when stuck in the car for long trips and even when waiting for one brother to finish with scouts or soccer. The books have led to wonderful conversations about science and literature and even math. I think these books are a valuable supplement to my boys' education.