KindergartEn

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

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

1. Counting, Cardinality, Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• Students develop a more formal sense of numbers.
• Students use numbers, including written numbers, to represent quantities and to solve quantitative problems (Counting objects in a set, counting out a given number of objects, comparing sets or numerals, modeling simple joining and separating situations with sets of objects, eventually seeing math equations like 5 + 2 = 7 and 7 - 2 = 5).
• Students choose and apply effective strategies for answering quantity (how many) questions.
• Students recognize the cardinalities (when counting objects say the number names in standard order pairing each object with one and only one number name) of small sets of objects, can count and produce groups of objects of given sizes, can count the number of objects in combined sets or can count the number of objects that remain in a set after some are taken away.

2. Geometry, Measurement and Data

• Students describe their physical world using geometric ideas (e.g., shape, orientation/positions, spatial relationships and vocabulary).
• Students identify, name, and describe basic two-dimensional shapes (squares, triangles, circles, rectangles and hexagons presented in different sizes and sitting in different positions).
• Students identify, name and describe basic three-dimensional shapes (cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres).
• Students use basic shapes and spatial reasoning to model objects in their environment and to construct more complex shapes.

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 kindergartner. 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 understand the organization and basic features of print to aid in comprehension.
  • Concepts of print include:
    • Following words from left to right, top to bottom and page by page.
    • Recognizing that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
    • Recognizing that words are separated by spaces in print.
    • Recognizing and naming all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

2. Phonological Awareness

• Students demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables and sounds (phonemes).
• Students recognize and orally produce rhyming words.
• Students count, pronounce, blend and segment syllables in spoken words.
• Students isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel and final sounds (phonemes) in three phoneme words.
• Students add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

3. Phonics and Word Recognition

• Students know and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
• Students demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondence by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant.
• Students associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
• Students read common high frequency words by sight.
• Students orally distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.

4. Fluency

• Students read fluently (accuracy, speed and prosody - the patterns of rhythm and sound) on grade level to support comprehension.
• Students read emergent reader texts with purpose and understanding.

5. Reading Comprehension (Literature and Informational)

• With prompting and support, students ask and answer explicit questions about key ideas/concepts and details, and make logical inferences to construct meaning from the text.
• With prompting and support, students orally recognize key details from a summary to demonstrate understanding of the lesson learned/central idea in the story/text.
• With prompting and support, students identify characters, settings and major events in order to make meaning of the story development. (Literature)
• With prompting and support, students identify the individuals, events, ideas or pieces of information presented over the course of a text. (Informational)
• With prompting and support, students identify words/phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses and ask/answer questions about unknown words in a text.
• Students recognize common structures of poems, stories and dramas.
• Students identify the front cover, back cover and title page of a book.
• With prompting and support, students identify the author and illustrator of a story/text and explain how each tells the story/presents the ideas or information.
• With prompting and support, students describe the relationship between illustrations/visuals and the story/text.
• With prompting and support, students identify the claim and the reasons an author gives to support claims in a text.
• With prompting and support, students compare/contrast the adventures, experiences or information of characters/two or more texts about similar themes/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 print all upper and lowercase letters and numerals.
• 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 idea and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising and editing.
• For informative/explanatory writing, students introduce the topic, supply information 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 idea and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising and editing.
• For narrative writing, students recount a single event, include details which describe actions, thoughts and emotions, create a sense of closure and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising and editing.
• With guidance and support from adults, students explore 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 common nouns and verbs, regular plural nouns by orally adding /s/ or /es/, interrogative sentences using who, what, where, when, why and how, and sentences using common prepositions and complete sentences.
• When writing, students capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I, recognize and name end punctuation, write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds, spell simple words phonetically - drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.
• Students determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on kindergarten reading and content by identifying homophones, identifying common affixes and how they change the meaning of a word, use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts.
• With guidance and support from adults, students explore word relationships and nuances in word meanings by sorting common objects into categories (e.g., shapes, foods) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent,
• With guidance and support from adults, students demonstrate an understanding of verbs and adjectives and their antonyms/synonyms.

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