Cycle 1 - Curricular Standards

Common Core Standards (Kindergarten)

Reading: Literature

• Key Ideas and Details
  • With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
  • With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.
  • With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.
     
• Craft and Structure
  • Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.
  • Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems).
  • With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.
     
• Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
  • With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).
  • With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.
     
• Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
  • Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

Reading: Informational Text

• Key Ideas and Details:
  • With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
  • With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
  • With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
     
• Craft and Structure:
  • With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.
  • Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.
  • Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text.
     
• Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
  • With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts).
  • With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text.
  • With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).
     
• Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:
  • Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding

Reading: Foundational Skills

• Print Concepts:
  • Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
    • Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
    • Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
    • Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
    • Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
       
• Phonological Awareness:
  • Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
    • Recognize and produce rhyming words.
    • Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
    • Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
    • Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.1 (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)
    • Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.
       
• Phonics and Word Recognition:
  • Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
    • Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant.
    • Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
    • Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
    • Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
       
• Fluency:
  • Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.

Writing

• Text Types and Purposes:
  • Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book (e.g., My favorite book is...).
  • Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.
  • Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.
     
• Production and Distribution of Writing:
  • With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.
  • With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.
     
• Research to Build and Present Knowledge:
  • Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them).
  • With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Speaking and Listening

• Comprehension and Collaboration:
  • Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
    • Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion).
    • Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.
       
  • Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood.
  • Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood.
     
• Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:
  • Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting and support, provide additional detail.
  • Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail.
  • Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.

Language

• Conventions of Standard English:
  • Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
    • Print many upper- and lowercase letters.
    • Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.
    • Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (e.g., dog, dogs; wish, wishes).
    • Understand and use question words (interrogatives) (e.g., who, what, where, when, why, how).
    • Use the most frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., to, from, in, out, on, off, for, of, by, with).
    • Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.
       
• Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
  • Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I
  • Recognize and name end punctuation.
  • Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).
  • Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.
     
• Vocabulary Acquisition and Use:
  • Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on kindergarten reading and content.
    • Identify new meanings for familiar words and apply them accurately (e.g., knowing duck is a bird and learning the verb to duck).
    • Use the most frequently occurring inflections and affixes (e.g., -ed, -s, re-, un-, pre-, -ful, -less) as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word.
       
  • With guidance and support from adults, explore word relationships and nuances in word meanings.
    • Sort common objects into categories (e.g., shapes, foods) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.
    • Demonstrate understanding of frequently occurring verbs and adjectives by relating them to their opposites (antonyms).
    • Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., note places at school that are colorful).
    • Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs describing the same general action (e.g., walk, march, strut, prance) by acting out the meanings.
       
• Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts.