Literacy Curriculum

Reading and Writing Development:
Throughout the year we strive for continuous reading development in all kindergartners. The following skills will help you see the various areas of this development process:

Shows interest in a book 
"Reads" a familiar story using picture clues 
"Reads" a familiar story by memory and pattern repetition 
Uses a book front to back 
Uses a book from left to right and top to bottom 
Identifies a letter 
Identifies a word 
Identifies (eventually reads) a sentence

We encourage all kinds of phonics-based spelling for kindergartners. Any form of kindergarten writing is a reason to celebrate. The following is a continuum children follow as their writing develops. Please keep in mind that writing is very developmental and each child is unique in how they begin to write. Also, it is very common for students to be in two or three stages at one time!

Scribbling 
Drawing 
Attempting to form letters 
Random letters 
Initial consonants only 
First/last consonants only 
First/last consonants and some vowels 
Words in a sentence format

Star Words 
There are also 18 sight words we study in kindergarten. We like to call them "star words" or even "popcorn words" because they keep popping up in all of the books we read! Here is a list of the words your child should practice recognizing.

I         see 
like     my 
a         to 
and     go 
is        here 
for      have 
said    the 
play    she 
are      he

Word Families
We also study 10 word families during kindergarten. We learn to make and read these fun rhyming words. Our word families are the:

-at family 
-an family 
-it family 
-ig family 
-ox family 
-ot family 
-et family 
-en family 
-ug family 
-ut family

For example words in the AT family would be cat, bat, mat, hat, and rat. These are wonderful words to help your child begin to read and write with confidence!