Wondering what foundational reading skills your kindergarten students need to know based on the Common Core State Standards? Here are the four areas they need to develop basic skills in and the specific skills they need to develop in each of these areas:
PRINT CONCEPTS
Understand the organization and basic features of printed text.
1. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
2. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
3. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
4. Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
5. Recognize and produce rhyming words.
6. Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
7. Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
8. Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words. (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)
9. Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.
PHONICS AND WORD RECOGNITION
Know and apply grade-appropriate phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
10. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sound for each consonant.
11. Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
12. Read common high-frequency sight words (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
13. Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
FLUENCY
14. Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.
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