by Ellen Carroll on February 21, 2009

Education, First Grade

After Kindergarten, your child is developing skills like crazy so it’s easy to think that they’re exactly where they should be when it comes to moving up a grade. One of the most anticipated experiences of first grade is the thrill of learning to read. What you may not know, though, is that reading skills are cultivated long before your child reaches the first grade. After Kindergarten, most children are ready to advance to first grade, but if your child shows any reserve when it comes to early reading and communication skills, you may want to check out this list to be sure he’s really ready.

Language Skills- Learning to communicate vocally is an important part of your child’s development and a key to learning to read. When entering first grade, your child should be able to describe their experiences, predict what may happen in the future and talk about events that happened in the past.  Children should be able to understand classification (Animals, Shapes, Numbers, etc.) and be able to identify what objects fall into which categories. They should be able to understand and use sequence (big to small, first to last, etc.) and simple prepositions (over/under, before/after, etc.) in conversation.

Background Information- When learning to read, it is important for children to have some level of understanding of the world around them, in order for what they’re reading to make sense. For this reason, it is imperative that children enter the first grade with a wide variety of past exposure to history, geography and science. This doesn’t mean your child has to have a full understanding of any of these concepts, but having some knowledge of basics will greatly increase their ability to make sense of what they read.

Additionally, children should enter the first grade with an appreciation of the written word. They should be exposed to all types of literature as both active listeners and participants. Participation in reading is a necessity when building a solid foundation for learning (and loving) to read. Children should be able to retell stories that have been read to them and remember details without much prompting. They should be able to retell a story’s events in the correct order in which they occurred, and use new words to describe them.

Understanding Print- New first graders should understand not only the format of print (left to right, top to bottom) but that when read, there is a one to one correspondence between the words on the page and the words the reader says.

Sounds of the Alphabet- It’s a fact that you can’t learn to read if you don’t know what sounds the letters on a page make. Familiarity with the alphabet is absolute necessity when learning to read. Kindergartners should be able to recognize letters and the sounds that represent them, as well as their printed names and names of their classmates. Understanding that words are made of individual sounds can teach a reader to break down words into smaller groups of syllables and then say them together, as one word. After gaining command of these skills, a child can learn to write their own words, using sounds of letters to guide them into spelling words.

In short, be sure your child has a firm grasp on the basic concepts of reading. Being able to identify letters by their shape and sound are the cornerstones to learning to read. Armed with this knowledge, your child will be prepared for the first grade and all its adventures!

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