Reading Standards: Foundational Skills
These standards are directed toward fostering students’ understanding and working knowledge of concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other basic conventions of the English writing system. These foundational skills are not an end in and of themselves; rather, they are necessary and important components of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to develop proficient readers with the capacity to comprehend texts across a range of types and disciplines. Instruction should be differentiated: good readers will need much less practice with these concepts than struggling readers will. The point is to teach students what they need to learn and not what they already know—to discern when particular children or activities warrant more or less attention.
Note: In kindergarten, children are expected to demonstrate increasing awareness and competence in the areas that follow.
Kindergarteners:
Print Concepts
1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
d. Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.(RF.K.1.)
1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation). (RF.1.1.)
Phonological Awareness
2. Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds phonemes).
a. Recognize and produce rhyming words.
b. Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
c. Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
d. 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/.)
e. Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words. (RF.K.2.)
2. Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
a. Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.
b. Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.
c. Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.
d. Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes). (RF.1.2.)
Note: In kindergarten, children are expected to demonstrate increasing awareness and competence in the areas that follow.
Kindergarteners:
Phonics and Word Recognition
3. Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
a. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sound for each consonant.
b. Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
c. Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
d. Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.(RF.K.3.)
3. Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
a. Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.
b. Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.
c. Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.
d. Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.
e. Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.
f. Read words with inflectional endings.
g. Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words. (RF.1.3.)
3. Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
a. Distinguish long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one-syllable words.
b. Know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams.
c. Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.
d. Decode words with common prefixes and suffixes.
e. Identify words with inconsistent but common spelling-sound correspondences.
f. Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words. (RF.2.3.)
Fluency
4. Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding. (RF.K.4.)
Kindergarteners:
Key Ideas and Details
1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. (RI.K.1)
2. With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text. (RI.K.1)
3. With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. (RI.K.1)
IA.1.Employ the full range of research-based comprehension strategies, including making connections, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing, and monitoring for comprehension.
Craft and Structure
4. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text. (RI.K.1)
5. Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book. (RI.K.1)
6. Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text. (RI.K.1)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts). (RI.K.1)
8. With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text.(RI.K.1)
9. With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures). (RI.K.1)
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
10. Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. (RI.K.1)
Reading Standards for Literature K
The following standards offer a focus for instruction each year and help ensure that students gain adequate exposure to a range of texts and tasks. Rigor is also infused through the requirement that students read increasingly complex texts through the grades. Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.
Kindergarteners:
Key Ideas and Details
1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. (RL.K.1)
2. With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details. (RL.K.2)
3. With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story. (RL.K.3)
IA.1.Employ the full range of research-based comprehension strategies, including making connections, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing, and monitoring for comprehension.
Craft and Structure
4. Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text. (RL.K.4)
5. Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems). (RL.K.5)
6. With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story. (RL.K.6)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts). (RL.K.7)
8. (Not applicable to literature) (RL.K.8)
9. With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories. (RL.K.9)
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
10. Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. (RL.K.10)