What your child needs to know by the end of Kindergarten

National PTA Organization

 

Literacy and English Language Arts:

Learning new language skills is a hallmark of kindergarten. Your child will learn about
the alphabet and its role in reading. Your child will practice rhyming, matching words
with beginning sounds, and blending sounds into words. Practice with these types of
activities is a powerful step toward learning to read and spell correctly. The size of your
child’s vocabulary is another key factor in his or her ability to read and comprehend
books and stories. Your child also will begin to experiment with writing and will be
encouraged to use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing letters to share
information, ideas, and feelings.

 

What your child will be working on in Kindergarten:

• Naming upper- and lower-case letters, matching those letters with their sounds, and printing them

• Comparing the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories, such as fairy tales and folktales

• Retelling familiar stories and talking about stories read to them using details from the text

• Using a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to describe an event, including his or her reaction to what happened

• Stating an opinion or preference about a topic or book in writing                                           (e.g., “My favorite book is . . .”)

• Taking part in classroom conversations and following rules for discussions (e.g., learning to

       listen to others and taking turns when speaking)

• Speaking clearly to express thoughts, feelings, and ideas, including descriptions of familiar

       people, places, things, and events

• Asking and answering questions about key details in stories or other information read aloud

• Understanding and using question words (e.g., who, what, where, when, why, how) in discussions

• Learning to recognize, spell, and properly use those little grammatical words that hold the language together (e.g., a, the, to, of, from, I, is, are).

 

Mathematics:

Young children arrive in kindergarten with widely varying knowledge in math. By the
end of the year, your child must have some important foundations in place. One of the
most important skills your child should develop is the ability to add and subtract small
numbers and use addition and subtraction to solve word problems. This will rely on
gaining some fundamentals early in the year, such as counting objects to tell how many
there are. Addition and subtraction will continue to be a very strong focus in math
through 2nd grade.

 

What your child will be working on in Kindergarten:

• Counting objects to tell how many there are Comparing two groups of objects to tell which

group, if either, has more; comparing two written numbers to tell which is greater

• Acting out addition and subtraction word problems and drawing diagrams to represent them

• Adding with a sum of 10 or less; subtracting from a number 10 or less; and solving addition and subtraction word problems

• Adding and subtracting very small numbers quickly and accurately (e.g., 3 + 1)

• Correctly naming shapes regardless of orientation or size (e.g., a square oriented as a “diamond” is still a square)