Reading
My goal is to have all students reading at or above grade level by the end of the year. To reach that goal, students need to be able to identify all letters, upper and lower case, as well as the sounds they make. They must have several skills in place, including:
knowing where to start reading a story or sentence
moving from left to right
knowing where to go once they reach the end of the line
one-to-one correspondence (being able to point to the words as they are read)
"stretching" the sounds of the letters on the page to decode words
Writing
Our school uses the Lucy Calkins writing program. We focus on writing the best we can and continuing on. Kindergarteners are not expected to spell words "like they look in books" but to write them phonetically (inventive spelling). Every day we list the four things all writers do:
Capitals at the beginning;
Punctuation at the end;
Finger spaces between words;
Lower case unless it's important.
In kindergarten we evaluate and score students' writing levels on a rubric with a score of 1-6.
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Here is a link to the Michigan kindergarten content expectations for language arts (reading, writing, speaking).