First Grade

A family guide to the standards for first grade developed by Kentucky Department of Education can be found here

In first grade we have divided your child's learning into a progression of units or clusters that will lead to understanding of mathematics in four major areas:

1. Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• Students develop strategies for adding and subtracting whole numbers based on their prior work with small numbers.
• Students use a variety of models, including discrete objects and length-based models (e.g., cubes connected to form lengths so they can model add-to, take-from, put-together, take apart and compare situations to develop meaning for the operations of addition and subtraction, and to develop strategies to solve arithmetic problems with these operations).
• Students understand connections between counting and addition or subtraction (e.g., adding two is the same as counting on two).
• Students use properties of addition to add whole numbers and to create and use more challenging strategies (e.g., making tens) to solve addition and subtraction problems within 20.
• Students build understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction by comparing a variety of solution strategies.

2. Number and Operations in Base Ten

• Students develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate and generalizable methods to add within 100 and subtract multiples of 10.
• Students compare whole numbers (at least to 100) to develop understanding of and solve problems involving their relative sizes.
• Students think of whole numbers between 10 and 100 in terms of tens and ones (especially recognizing the numbers 11 to 19 as composed of a ten and some ones).
• Through activities that build number sense, students understand the order of the counting numbers and their relative magnitudes.

3. Measurement and Data

• Students develop an understanding of the meaning and processes of measurement, including underlying concepts such as the mental math activity of building up the length of an object with equal-sized units such as paperclips, cubes, etc.

4. Geometry

• Students compose (put together) and decompose (take apart) plane (2 dimensional) or solid (3 dimensional) figures.
• Students build understanding of part to whole relationships as well as the properties of the original shapes and a composite shape (a new shape built with more than one basic shape).
• As students combine shapes, they recognize the shapes from different perspectives and orientations, describe their geometric attributes such as sides, lines, faces, etc., and determine how they are alike and different to develop the background for measurement and for initial understandings of properties such as congruence and symmetry.

To access math resources to support your child, use the drop menu from above or click here.

In the area of Reading/Writing, there are seven critical components in which your child will focus his/her learning as a first grader. The instruction in your child's classroom through the reading units will help your child increase skill development in the following:

1. Print Concepts

• Students demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print to aid in comprehension by recognizing the distinguishing features of a sentence including first word capitalization, spacing and ending punctuation.

2. Phonological Awareness

• Students demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables and sounds (phonemes).
• Students distinguish long vowel sounds from short vowel sounds in spoken single syllable words.
• Students orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.
• Students construct and deconstruct spoken single syllable words into initial, medial vowel and final sounds (phonemes).

3. Phonics and Word Recognition

• Students know the spelling-sound correspondences for two letters that represent one sound.
• Students decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.
• Students know final - e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.
• Students demonstrate knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.
• With adult support, students decode two-syllable words by breaking the words into syllables.
• Students read words with inflectional endings.
• Students recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.

4. Fluency

• Students read fluently (accuracy, speed and prosody - the patterns of rhythm and sound) on grade level to support comprehension.
• Students read grade level text with purpose and understanding.
• Students orally read grade level text fluently on successive readings.
• Students use context to confirm or self correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

5. Reading Comprehension (Literature and Informational)

• With prompting and support, students ask and answer explicit questions about key ideas/concepts and details, make and support logical inferences to construct meaning from the text.
• With prompting and support, students recognize key details from a summary to demonstrate understanding of the author's message, lesson learned, moral of a story or central idea of a text.
• Students describe characters, settings and major events in a story, using key details in order to make meaning of the story development.
• With prompting and support, students identify the connections between individuals, events, ideas or pieces of information over the course of a text.
• Students identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses in order to construct meaning.
• Students recognize major differences between the structure of poems, stories and dramas, including but not limited to linear, nonlinear and circular structures.
• With prompting and support, students identify who is telling the story at various points in a text.
• Students ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a grade level text.
• Students know and use various text features, including but not limited to headings, tables of contents, glossaries, captions, bold print, subheadings, indexes, electronic menus, and icons to locate key facts or information in a text.
• Students distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text.
• Students use illustrations/visuals and details to describe characters, setting, events, or key ideas in a story/text.
• Students identify the claim and the reasons an author gives to support the claim in a text.
• Students compare/contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.
• Students identify information from two or more texts on similar themes or topics.
• With prompting and support, students flexibly use a variety of comprehension strategies (i.e., questioning, monitoring, visualizing, inferencing, summarizing, using prior knowledge, determining importance) to make sense of grade level appropriate, complex literary/informational texts.

6. Handwriting and Composition Writing

• Students legibly print all upper- and lowercase letters and numerals with correct form.
• Students compose opinion pieces, informative and/or explanatory texts, and narratives using a combination of drawing, dictating, writing and digital resources.
• With guidance and support, students strengthen writing through peer/adult collaboration and adding details through writing and/or pictures as needed.
• For opinion writing, students introduce the topic, provide reasons with details to support the opinion, use grade-appropriate transitions, provide a concluding section and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising and editing.
• For informative/explanatory writing, students introduce the topic, supply information with detail to develop the topic, use grade-appropriate conjunctions to develop text structure within sentences, use grade-appropriate transitions to develop text structures across paragraphs, provide a concluding section and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising and editing.
• For narrative writing, students recount a single event or multiple events, memories or ideas, include details which describe actions, thoughts and emotions, use temporal words and phrases to signal event order, create a sense of closure and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising and editing.
• With guidance and support from adults, students use a variety of digital resources to create and publish products, including collaboration with peers.
• With guidance and support, students participate in shared research and writing projects.
• With guidance and support, students collect information from real-world experiences or provided sources to answer or generate questions.

7. Language and Vocabulary

• When writing or speaking, students demonstrate appropriate use of:

a. common, proper and possessive nouns in a sentence.

b. singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences.

c. personal, possessive and indefinite pronouns in a sentence.

d. verbs to convey a sense of past, present and future in a sentence.

e. frequently occurring adjectives, conjunctions, or prepositions in a sentence.

f. declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts.

• When writing, students capitalize proper nouns, including but not limited to dates and names of people, demonstrate appropriate use of end punctuation, produce and write commas in dates and to separate single words in a series, use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words and spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness or spelling conventions.
• Students determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 1 reading and content by choosing flexibly from an array of strategies such as:

a. using sentence level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

b. identifying common affixes and how they change the meaning of a word.

c. with guidance and support, identifying frequently occurring root words and their inflectional forms.

d. using words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using frequently occurring conjunctions to signal simple relationships.

• With guidance and support from adults, students demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings by:

a. sorting words into categories to classify relationships and to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

b. defining words by category and by one or more key attributes (e.g., a duck is a bird that swims; a tiger is a large cat with stripes).

c. demonstrating understanding of words by relating them to their synonyms and antonyms.

d. defining or acting out the shades of meaning among verbs (e.g., look, peek, glance) and adjectives differing in intensity (e.g., large, gigantic).

To access reading and writing resources to support your child, use the drop menu from above or click here.