Kindergarten Reading Expectations

This page will guide you in helping your child meet kindergarten reading expectations. These recommendations are based on the science of reading.

Home support plays a critical role in a child’s academic success, especially during the early years when they develop foundational skills. By actively engaging in your child’s learning journey, you can reinforce what they are taught in school, boost their confidence, and help create positive learning habits. The resources here will empower you with practical tools to make learning fun, effective, and meaningful at home

Parents and Teachers! Check out the skills children need in their grade!

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1. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Master phonological and phonemic awareness. These activities can be done with eyes shut—no print should be in front of the child. Print and follow this! If children cannot hear and manipulate sounds in their heads, they won’t be able to read and spell!

Blending and segmenting are the most important phonemic awareness activities because they directly correlate to reading and spelling. You can find these activities by following this link, but you can blend and segment any word! For example, ask your child to blend these sounds into a word:  /c/ /a/ /t/.  To segment, have your child separate the individual sounds. For example, the word “plant” can be segmented into the sounds /p/, /l/, /a/, /n/, /t/.

It would also be ideal to teach your child nursery rhymes. It is unfortunate that so many children no longer know these classic nursery rhymes. Rhyming helps children experience the rhythm of language, recognize sounds in words, anticipate what is coming next, and more! There are many cute free online videos of nursery rhymes, and the library has beautiful nursery rhyme books.

 

2. Letter Names, Letter Sounds, and Letter Formation

Master letter names and sounds. Get a set of flashcards — (see image above). I like these because the uppercase and lowercase letters are on separate cards, they are large and sturdy, and the “a” is made the way your child will learn to form it. Have your child match the uppercase letters to the lowercase letters. Alternatively, you can create your own using index cards.

Correct letter formation is essential! The above workbook is perfect to use! You should form all letters from the top down. Not only are improperly formed letters visually unappealing, but they also hinder children’s writing speed, which can impact their performance in test-taking, creative writing, and note-taking. It will also affect their ability to learn cursive. kindergarten reading expectations

3. Phonics

Please read my Wilson Fundations page to learn about kindergarten phonics expectations. Your child’s school may use a different curriculum, but all curricula tend to cover the same content.

Here is an excellent workbook to purchase! It teaches parents step by step how to teach their child through short daily lessons. It is colorful with activities your child can do, right there with you, and it is based on the science of reading.

4. Tapping, Blending, Spelling

Teach tapping out and blending 3 sounds to form consonant-short vowel-consonant words, or CVC words, such as bat, bit, tub, pet, pot. Here is an AMAZING activity! Watch the video clip below. (This is not my video.) Word lists are also below.

• Say it
• Stretch it
• Spell it
• Change it

Kindergarten Science of Reading

Research indicates that decodable texts are the most effective way to learn to read.

Decodable text falls under the phonics approach of the science of reading. When students decode words, they break them down and figure out how to pronounce them. Teaching beginning readers how to sound out words is crucial for accurate reading and writing. 

• Always have your child read each story 3 times for fluency and accuracy.
• Having your child point to each word with 1:1 correspondence is essential because students tend to guess or memorize these simpler texts.
• Your child should be able to figure out unknown words independently by sounding them out. Not all words can be perfectly sounded out, but most words have at least parts that can!

When reading any text…

• No more than 10 errors per 100 words, including words you had to tell your child, are acceptable.
• The child must also demonstrate comprehension. Kindergartners should retell the story, make a connection to their own life or another book, and share their favorite part, explaining why.

6. Master Sight Words

Here are flashcards by grade level!

Master a few sight words each day. Kindergarteners should be familiar with the pre-primer (pre-kindergarten) and primer (kindergarten) sight words in isolation. These are best learned in context. They should read, reread, and reread the preprimer and primer stories found here:

For more practice, write each pre-primer and primer word in your own simple sentence for your child to practice reading.

Here are more sight word stories! indergarten Science of Reading

Parents, consider labeling items in your home, such as the desk, refrigerator, television, and bed. The more print your child encounters, the better! Additionally, you should implement closed captioning on TV and online read-alouds.

7. Vocabulary for Kindergartners

Kindergartners need to know the meaning of these words from the Marzano list. And the meaning of these words, taken from WORDS TO KNOW BY GRADE LEVEL.

8. Are you looking for a tech option?

Here are kindergarten Common Core State Standards question stems you can use as discussion starters with your child, but make talking about books fun! The classroom utilizes the CCSS, however. Kindergarten Science of Reading

We administer the free DIBELS 8 three times a year to all students. DIBELS 8 comprises several 1-minute tests. In kindergarten, the tests are:

• Name letters. The uppercase and lowercase letters are mixed up on a sheet of paper. The child must rapidly name them.
• Orally segment individual sounds heard in a word; for example, “apple” is /a/ /p/ /l/ and “holes” is /h/ /o/ /l/ /z/. If the child can correctly segment apple (3 sounds) and holes (4 sounds), that is 7 sounds.
• Read 3-letter short vowel nonsense words—these can be sounded out—for example, “sil,” “tog,” “paj,” “zev,” “nud.” The goal is for the child to recognize these chunks automatically.
• Read real words—sight words.

The minimum scores to pass:  Here are other free literacy assessments

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05/04/2012

Edited on 10/26/2025

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