It's fourth quarter, where should my child be?

We are three quarters of the way through Kindergarten!  Where does the time go?  

We thought we'd touch base with where your child should be preforming at this point in the school year.  

Letters and Sounds - Students should be able to name each upper case and lower case letter at this point.  They should also know all 21 sounds of the consonants, and the 10 vowel sounds.  Look up AlphaFriends on YouTube if you feel like your child needs extra practice with letter identification or letter sounds.

Writing- Students should be writing 1-3 sentences on their own.  They will still be using phonetic spelling.  You should see capital letters at the beginning of sentences, and periods at the end.  You will start to see sight words spelled correctly.  This is something we are working on during writer's workshop.  Here are some examples, you'll notice every child is developing at their own pace.

Reading- Every child is meeting with Mrs. Davis or Mrs. Strobel for guided reading.  Reading baggies will continue to come home through the end of the year.  Students are considered on grade level if they are reading at a level C right now.  They should leave kindergarten reading at a level D.

Sight words - Our expectation is that Kindergarteners know at least 42 of the 55 sight words.  Here are the sight words in case you want to work on them.  The words in black are expected, words in navy blue are considered helpful to know before first grade.  Remember students need to recognize the word within 3 seconds.  

Math- students should be able to compose (make) and decompose (take apart) any number from 0-20.  They should be able to represent the number in several ways, using addition and subtraction, using a ten frame, tally marks, and with counters.  Students need to be able to count by 10s to 100.  They should be able to count by 1s to 100.  We practice these activities daily.  

Check out Jack Hartman on YouTube.  He has some awesome counting songs!