Common Core Review for Kindergarteners and 1st Graders

Right now most school districts are six to eight weeks into the new school year. That’s a long time for a kindergarten or 1st grade student! It’s also a time when many schools are scheduling first parent conferences.

Here are some of the Common Core State Standards learning skills that young students (and parents) may be experiencing for the first time, in homework or school worksheets, specific for kindergarten or 1st grade students.

Kindergarten English/Language Arts:

• Following words, left to right and top to bottom on story pages
• Retelling a story with key details
• Recognizing some common “sight” words (for example, the, of, my, do, is, are)
• Using a combination of drawing, dictating, or attempting to print to begin writing stories

For a kindergarten child in math:

• Counting by ones and tens to 100
• Identifying objects in groups as “greater than,” “less than,” or “equal to”
• Correctly recognizing basic shapes
• Begin to correctly recognize and write numbers from 0-20

1st grade English/Language Arts:

• Recognize what makes a sentence (capitalization, punctuation, etc.)
• Use drawings and details in a story to describe character, setting, or events
• Begin to understand the “main idea” of a story
• Participate in collaborative conversations about stories, books, etc., according to class discussion rules

For 1st grade math:

• Understanding place value of tens and ones (for example, when seeing the number 52, knowing that the “5” means 5 “tens” and the “2” means 2 “ones”)
• Be able to order at least three objects from length (shortest to tallest or tallest to shortest)
• Tell time to the hour on both analogical and digital clocks ( and to the half-hour by the end of 1st grade)
• Use parts of circles, squares, or rectangles to understand halves and fourths (quarters)

This is a general framework to help you understand some of what your kindergarten or 1st grade child is expected to master, or what he or she may need to practice. Follow my blog, throughout the school year, for additional skills and clarifications on Common Core State Standards.