The Chronic Consumer

I’ve been working with my son on his reading and spelling this summer, and one of the books we’ve been using is Spectrum Reading Grade 2. This is terrific workbook that I highly recommend for several reasons. First, the units are presented in a way that actually helps with reading comprehension, not just reading alone.

There is a story on one page, and then Vocabulary Skills exercises and Reading Skills exercises on the facing page. The Vocabulary Skills exercises can range from writing synonyms for words that appear in the story to changing words from singular to plural, sentence completion, and more. The Reading Skills exercises ask specific questions about the story that require the student to either recall details from the written text, or think beyond the text to speculate about what might happen.

The stories are interesting and varied, making it easy for me to entice my son to work on the next one. He has been doing great with this workbook so far!

My only criticism of the book is that some of the stories seem a bit advanced for second graders. I’ve had to help my son far more than anticipated — though I guess to be fair I should say I can’t tell 100 percent if that’s because of the book or because he’s a bit behind his peers anyway.

At any rate, you can hardly go wrong with a book that cost around $10. I really like this Spectrum series!