Reading and Writing Standards for Grades K - 3*
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Kindergarten
Standards for
Kindergarten Reading Standard 1: Print-Sound Code
Knowledge
of Letters and Their Sounds
Children
leaving kindergarten should be able to:
recognize and name most letters;
recognize and say the common sounds of most
letters and write a letter that goes with a spoken sound; and
use their knowledge of sounds and letters
to write phonetically, representing consonant sounds with single letters in the
correct sequence.
Phonemic
Awareness
(Segmenting and Blending Sounds)
By the
end of kindergarten, children should be able to:
produce rhyming words and recognize
pairs of rhyming words;
isolate initial consonants in
single-syllable words (for example, /t/ is the first sound in top);
when a single-syllable word is
pronounced (for example, cat), identify the onset (/c/) and rime
(-at) to form words (cat) and begin to blend separately spoken
phonemes to make a meaningful one-syllable word (for example, when the teacher
says a word slowly, stretching it out as "mmm - ahhh - mmm," children
can say that the word being stretched out is mom).
Reading
Words
By the end
of kindergarten, children should have caught on to the alphabetic idea, i.e.,
how the writing system works with respect to sounds. Children leaving
kindergarten should be able to:
use their knowledge of letter sounds
to figure out a few simple, regularly spelled, single-syllable words
(consonant-vowel-consonant);
read simple texts containing familiar
letter-sound correspondences and high-frequency words; and
read some words on their own,
including a small number (about 20) of simple, high-frequency words that are
recognized by "sight" - that is, when children encounter the words in
a story, they do not need to sound the words out.
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Kindergarten Reading Standard 2: Getting the Meaning
Accuracy
and Fluency
Children
at the end of kindergarten should understand that every word in a text says
something specific. They can demonstrate this competence in the following ways:
read Level B books they have not seen
before, but that have been previewed for them, attending to each word in
sequence and getting most of them correct; and
read "emergently" - that
is, "reread" a favorite story, re-creating the words of the text with
fluent intonation and phrasing and showing through verbal statements or
occasional pointing that they understand that the print on the page controls
what is said.
Self-Monitoring
and Self-Correcting Strategies
When
students are rereading a familiar book at the end of kindergarten, they should
be able to self-monitor and self-correct when necessary to determine whether:
they are looking at the correct page;
the word they are saying is the one
they are pointing to; and
what they read makes sense.
When
listening to stories read aloud, children should monitor whether the story is
making sense to them. Children leaving kindergarten should be able, for
example, to:
ask why a character would do that;
say they don't understand something;
or
say the character "is scared
because..." or "did that because... ."
Comprehension
In
addition to recognizing words, kindergartners should be able to get the gist of
texts they read. When they read on their own with expected levels of accuracy
and fluency, students at the end of kindergarten should be able to:
give evidence that they are following
the meaning of what they are reading (for example, retelling what they have
read using their own words or colloquial phrasing).
Kindergarten
children also should be able to concentrate on and make sense of texts they
hear read to them. The following are visible indicators that comprehension is
taking place.
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to:
retell the story in their own words
or re-enact it, getting the events in the correct sequence;
respond to simple questions about the
book's content (for example, "Can you tell me what this story was
about?" "What was Maria trying to do?" "How did Sam
feel?" "Why did Antoine hide under the bed?");
create artwork or a written response
that shows comprehension of the story that was read;
use knowledge from their own
experience to make sense of and talk about the text; and
make predictions based on
illustrations or portions of stories.
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Kindergarten Reading Standard 3: Reading Habits
Reading a
Kindergarten
students should be able to:
choose reading as a way to enjoy free
time and ask for books to be read aloud to them;
listen to one or two books read aloud
each day in school and discuss these books with teacher guidance;
hear another one or two books read to
them each day at home or in after-school care;
"reread" or read along -
alone or with a partner or adult - two to four familiar books each day; and
engage with a range of genres:
literature (stories, songs, poems, plays); functional texts (how-to books,
signs, labels, messages); and informational texts (all-about books, attribute
texts).
Reading
Behaviors
Kindergarten
students should be able to:
hold a book right side up and turn
pages in the correct direction;
be able to follow text with a finger,
pointing to each word as it is read; and
pay attention to what the words they
read are saying.
Discussing
Books
In
kindergarten discussions, children should be able to:
give reactions to the book, with
backup reasons;
listen carefully to each other;
relate their contributions to what
others have said;
ask each other to clarify things they
say; and
use newly learned vocabulary.
Vocabulary
Kindergarten
students should be able to:
notice words that they don't know
when they are read to and talked with and guess what the words mean from how
they are used;
talk about words and word meanings as
they are encountered in books and conversation;
show an interest in collecting words
and playing with ones they like; and
learn new words every day from talk
and books read aloud.
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Writing
Kindergarten Writing Standard 1: Habits and Processes
Habits
and Processes
Kindergarten
students should:
write daily;
generate content and topics for writing;
write without resistance when given the
time, place and materials;
use whatever means possible to communicate
and make meaning: drawings, letter strings, scribbles, letter approximations and
other graphic representations, as well as gestures, intonations and role-played
voices; and
make an effort to reread their own writing
and listen to that of others, showing attentiveness to meaning by, for example,
asking for more information or laughing.
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Kindergarten Writing Standard 2: Writing Purposes and Resulting Genres
Sharing
Events, Telling Stories: Narrative Writing
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to produce narratives
that:
contain a "story" that may
be only a single event or several events loosely linked, which the author may
react to, comment on, evaluate, sum up or tie together;
tell events as they move through time
(control for chronological ordering);
may include gestures, drawings and/or
intonations that support meaning; and
may incorporate storybook language
(for example, "and they lived happily ever after").
Informing
Others: Report or Informational Writing
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to:
gather, collect and share information
about a topic;
maintain a focus - stay on topic; and
exclude extraneous information when
prompted.
Getting
Things Done: Functional Writing
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to use writing to:
tell someone what to do (for example,
give directions, send messages); and
name or label objects or places.
Producing
and Responding to Literature
By the end
of the year, kindergarten students should be able to produce literature and
responses to literature in which they:
re-enact and retell stories (borrow
and burrow into stories, poems, plays and songs); and
use literary form and language (for
example, if they produce a poem, students should write with some poetic
language, perhaps even using poetic devices such as imagery and repetition).
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Kindergarten Writing Standard 3: Language Use and Conventions
Style and
Syntax
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to produce writing that:
uses the syntax of oral language and
so is easy to read aloud.
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to produce writing
(stories, songs, poems, rhymes) that:
approximates some of the phrasing and
rhythms of literary language.
Vocabulary
and Word Choice
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to:
use words in their writing that they
use in their conversation, usually represented phonetically.
Spelling
By the
end of the year, kindergarten students should be able to show evidence of their
ability to:
independently create text with words
that an adult (who is knowledgeable about spelling development and about the
content of the child's piece of writing) can decipher;
reread their own text with a match
between what they say and the words they have written on paper;
pause voluntarily in the midst of
writing to reread what they have written;
leave space between words;
control for directionality (left to
right, top to bottom); and
represent words frequently with the
initial consonant sound.
Punctuation,
Capitalization and Other Conventions
At this stage,
kindergarten students are not expected to show a regularity in - or even
awareness of - punctuation and conventions.
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*from Reading
& Writing Grade by Grade, New Standards Primary Literacy Standards ã 1999
National Center on Education and the Economy and the University of Pittsburgh.
New Standardsä
is a trademark of the
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