Literacy Accomplishments: Kindergarten

Below are highlights of typical literacy acquisition, supported by decades of research. The timing of these accomplishments depends on maturational and experiential differences among children, as well as the curriculum provided by a school.

• Knows the parts of a book and their functions.
• Begins to track print when listening to a familiar text being read or when rereading own writing.
• “Reads” familiar texts emergently, i.e., not necessarily verbatim from the print alone.
• Recognizes and can name all uppercase and lowercase letters.
• Understands that the sequence of letters in a written word represents the sequence of sounds (phonemes) in a spoken word (alphabetic principle).
• Learns many, though not all, one-to-one letter sound correspondences.
• Recognizes some words by sight, including a few very common ones (a, the, I, my, you, is, are).
• Uses new vocabulary and grammatical constructions in own speech.
• Makes appropriate switches from oral to written language situations.
• Notices when simple sentences fail to make sense.
• Connects information and events in texts to life and life to text experiences.
• Retells, reenacts, or dramatizes stories or parts of stories.
• Listens attentively to books teacher reads to class.
• Can name some book titles and authors.
• Demonstrates familiarity with a number of types or genres of text (e.g., storybooks, expository texts, poems, newspapers, and everyday print such as signs, notices, labels).
• Correctly answers questions about stories read aloud.
• Makes predictions based on illustrations or portions of stories.
• Demonstrates understanding that spoken words consist of a sequences of phonemes.
• Given spoken sets like “dan, dan, den” can identify the first two as being the same and the third as different.
• Given spoken sets like “dak, pat, zen” can identify the first two as sharing a same sound.
• Given spoken segments can merge them into a meaningful target word.
• Given a spoken word can produce another word that rhymes with it.
• Independently writes many uppercase and lowercase letters.
• Uses phonemic awareness and letter knowledge to spell independently (invented or creative spelling).
• Writes (unconventionally) to express own meaning.
• Builds a repertoire of some conventionally spelled words.
• Shows awareness of distinction between “kid writing” and conventional orthography.
• Writes own name (first and last) and the first names of some friends or classmates.
• Can write most letters and some words when they are dictated.