Click on the links below to see charts with more specific instructions on how to assist your child when he or she is struggling in school.
Parent Suggestions (English) /uploads/5/0/8/5/5085329/parent_report_card_suggestions-1.doc
Parent Suggestions (Spanish) /uploads/5/0/8/5/5085329/parents_spanish_report_card_help.doc
Parent Suggestions (Spanish) /uploads/5/0/8/5/5085329/parents_spanish_report_card_help.doc
What Can You Expect From Kindergarten? - courtesy of Shira Ackerman, MA - Scholastic.com
Reading
In kindergarten, children begin to grow as independent readers and become more familiar and comfortable with reading. Reading is intertwined into the daily life of your kindergartner. A kindergarten classroom is full of words and labeled objects. Students read and talk about books, as well as read the day’s schedules, class letters, songs, and poems throughout the day.
In order to build reading skills, your kindergartner:
Writing
In kindergarten, your child really begins to grow as a writer. Kindergartners start to write words (often using their own creative or invented spellings), and even write their own books and stories about their lives and what they’ve learned. Creative or invented spelling is a crucial part of developing writing skills. Using this method, your child spells words using the letters and sounds he hears. This is an important part of your child’s writing development as he gains a deeper understanding of letters, words and their sounds. In addition, most of the words your kindergartner learns to spell correctly are one syllable words which often follow the pattern of CVC, or CONSONANT, VOWEL, CONSONANT—for example, "Cat," "Big," or "Rug." And of course, the reading that your kindergartner does is directly connected to developing his writing and literacy skills.
In order to build writing skills, your kindergartner:
Math
In most kindergarten classes, math is woven throughout the day’s activities. This is especially effective because math becomes more meaningful when it is experienced in real-life contexts. Most importantly, your kindergartner will go beyond simply counting the numbers to understanding what numbers represent and actively using them to represent quantities. Daily kindergarten math activities include learning numbers, practicing counting, addition and subtraction, and learning concepts of time, measurement, and categorization. In addition, playing with puzzles, building toys, blocks, and games helps kindergarteners practice and build math skills in an enjoyable and engaging way, making their learning more meaningful and effective.
In order to build math skills, your kindergartner:
**For other math tips, click here for parent suggestions in English, and here for suggestions in Spanish.
Reading
In kindergarten, children begin to grow as independent readers and become more familiar and comfortable with reading. Reading is intertwined into the daily life of your kindergartner. A kindergarten classroom is full of words and labeled objects. Students read and talk about books, as well as read the day’s schedules, class letters, songs, and poems throughout the day.
In order to build reading skills, your kindergartner:
- Learns all of the letters of the alphabet (upper case and lower case) and their sounds.
- Begins to “read” books himself, mainly by memorization.
- Recognizes several basic sight words such as I, my, you, is, and are.
- Reads and listens to stories and then talks about the stories, including their plots, characters, and events.
- Follows words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
- Recognizes and can produce rhyming words.
- Adds or substitutes individual sounds in simple, one-syllable words to make new words, such as replacing the “C” in “Cat” with an “R” to create the word “Rat.”
- Read and Repeat: Have your child “read” her favorite book to you, using her memory, associations, and clues from the pictures.
- Alphabet Books: Use drawings or pictures from magazines to create an alphabet book with a letter and an object that begins with that letter on each page.
- Fill in the Blank: When you read a favorite picture book to your child and come across a short word that rhymes or is familiar to your child because he knows the book very well, stop and let him say the word. Point to the word as he says it and spell it out.
- Act it Out: Act out parts of or the whole story of your child’s favorite and well-known books.
Writing
In kindergarten, your child really begins to grow as a writer. Kindergartners start to write words (often using their own creative or invented spellings), and even write their own books and stories about their lives and what they’ve learned. Creative or invented spelling is a crucial part of developing writing skills. Using this method, your child spells words using the letters and sounds he hears. This is an important part of your child’s writing development as he gains a deeper understanding of letters, words and their sounds. In addition, most of the words your kindergartner learns to spell correctly are one syllable words which often follow the pattern of CVC, or CONSONANT, VOWEL, CONSONANT—for example, "Cat," "Big," or "Rug." And of course, the reading that your kindergartner does is directly connected to developing his writing and literacy skills.
In order to build writing skills, your kindergartner:
- Writes uppercase and lowercase letters.
- Writes his/her name.
- Writes some letters and words when they are dictated.
- Uses invented or creative spelling to write a variety of words.
- Uses conventional spelling to write some words (CVC and basic sight words).
- Writes, Draws and Dictates about a variety of topics, including his opinion and descriptions of objects or moments and events in his life.
- Label Things: Create labels with your child for different objects in your house. For example, various books, places for toys, foods, objects in the kitchen, or clothes. You or your child can write the names of the objects and your child can draw a picture to go along with it.
- Guessing Games: Draw a picture and have your child guess the spelling of that word. Give your child a few letters in a word. For example show your child “_AT,” and ask him to make as many words as he can with it.
- Create a Photo Album: When you take pictures of events or people ask your child to label the picture. Glue the picture to a piece of a paper so your child can write a description of the event, what happened, who was there, etc. If other people were involved in the event, send them a copy!
- Have a Letter Treasure Hunt: When you are in the car, at home or in the store, ask your child to find certain uppercase and lowercase letters. She can keep a list of all the letters she finds and write them down as she finds them.
Math
In most kindergarten classes, math is woven throughout the day’s activities. This is especially effective because math becomes more meaningful when it is experienced in real-life contexts. Most importantly, your kindergartner will go beyond simply counting the numbers to understanding what numbers represent and actively using them to represent quantities. Daily kindergarten math activities include learning numbers, practicing counting, addition and subtraction, and learning concepts of time, measurement, and categorization. In addition, playing with puzzles, building toys, blocks, and games helps kindergarteners practice and build math skills in an enjoyable and engaging way, making their learning more meaningful and effective.
In order to build math skills, your kindergartner:
- Understands that numbers represent quantity and uses them to do so.
- Counts and writes numbers from 1-20 (and potentially higher).
- Counts out and compare quantities, usually up to 20.
- Counts out and groups objects in order to solve single-digit addition and subtraction problems.
- Begins to recognize and understand the meaning of the plus and minus signs.
- Uses drawings, objects, actions and sounds to represent and practice addition and subtraction.
- Practices beginning measurement and graphing skills, often through the creation of class-wide graphs, such as graphing favorite snacks or how kids get to school.
- Learns about and begin to count to 100, specifically through tallying the days of school and a celebration on the 100th day of school (many but not all kindergarten classes do something like this).
- Creates patterns.
- Cook with Patterns: Patterns can be used in lots of cooking. Make patterns with cereal necklaces, decorate cookies, make layered sandwiches with bread or crackers, or make simple patterns using your child’s favorite colored candies.
- Tell Math Stories: Use objects or even yourselves to practice addition and subtraction. If you have a bowl of 5 apples, ask your child to help figure out how many you will have left if you take away 3.
- Build Things: Use blocks, Legos, or any other building toys to construct houses, towers, vehicles etc. As your child builds, ask him to count pieces, create patterns, and talk about the shapes.
- Take a Poll: Ask family members a question and create a graph of the answers using numbers and pictures.
- Find the Sizes in Nature: Go outside and collect things in nature such as leaves, stones, and pinecones. After you’ve collected things, count how many things you found and then talk about their sizes, which are larger, smaller, the largest, and the smallest. You can even add objects that are the same (for example, all of the leaves).
**For other math tips, click here for parent suggestions in English, and here for suggestions in Spanish.