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Kindergarten Expectations
 
To the Parents and/or Caregivers of Kindergarten Students:

This letter is meant to provide you with the expectations of the minimum skills a kindergartener will need to be successful in first grade. By the end of their kindergarten year, each child is expected to perform these skills without help. For example, this means that children should be able to independently reproduce a letter sound in isolation as well as isolating a sound appearing at the beginning of a word.

First grade relies heavily on word families to begin formal spelling and more advanced reading skills. Kindergarten children are more successful if they can hear and produce one syllable rhyming words such as: cat, hat, mat. They should also be able to identify in what part of the word they hear a particular sound (beginning, middle, and end). For example, the sound /s/ is heard at the beginning of “sun”, in the middle of “messy”, and at the end of “bus”. Children should also be able to say a word slowly to identify individual sounds. For example: cat has three sounds: /c/ /a/ /t/. Then the child should be able to blend those sounds together to say the whole word “cat”.

When writing, a kindergarten child frequently uses beginning sounds to convey a message. Children exiting kindergarten are expected to use dominant (obvious) sounds when writing. An example might be:

                  I HV A BG DG                 translation: I have a big dog.

By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to independently do the following reading/writing skills:
 identify all the lower case and upper case letters and know the sounds of each letter
 begin applying letters and sounds in their writing
 recognize basic sight words such as: I, am, at, in, the, is, to, and, etc.
 manipulate sounds in a word (“cat” becomes “bat” by replacing the “c” with “b”)
 understand that print conveys a message
 distinguish between a letter and a word
 follow text from left to right and return to the left of the second line
 identify punctuation marks such as period, question mark
 understand that text matches pictures
 point to each word that is being read
 read repetitive, predictable, simple texts


The following math concepts should be evident by the end of kindergarten:
 count objects to 31
 recognize numbers to 31
 count to 100 (by 1's, 5's and 10's)
 sort by different categories (ex: sort buttons into piles by shape, color, size, etc.)
 create, copy, and extend patterns such as AB, ABC, AABB, ABB, etc. (ex: children may be linking colored cubes AB-red/blue, ABC-red/blue/white, AABB-red/red/blue/blue, ABB-red/blue/blue)

Children may not progress as well as they should in school for the following reasons:
 Children are not read to consistently.
 There is a disruption in the family life which prevents a child from having a predictable routine.
 There is inconsistent discipline at home.
 The child gets less than 10 hours of sleep nightly.
 The child shows significant delays in academic and social development.
 The child does not interact positively with adults and other children.
 The child cannot focus on a single task for longer than five minutes.
 The child cannot manipulate sounds (for ex: the teacher says, “I’m thinking of a word that sounds like cat. What word am I thinking about? The child should say, “hat, mat, rat”, etc.
 The child shows a lack of responsibility and an inability to follow directions.
 The child consistently does not complete tasks.

By working hand and hand with the teacher, your child has a greater chance of having a successful start to their school career. When working with your child at home, the above information should help guide you. Reading good books every day and writing using magnetic letters and chalkboards are just a few things that can help produce positive results. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions. Thank you for your continued support. Together we can make this year productive, successful, and happy for your child!