Early Preschool, ages 3-4
• Loves looking at books and listening to stories
• Begins to understand that print carries a message
• Interested in sounds of language, repeats and plays with sounds, begins to learn how to rhyme
• Identifies some letters, especially those in their name
• Is able to match a few letters to their sounds
• Starts reading and writing
• Begins to develop awareness that sentences and then words come apart
Late Preschool, ages 4-5
• Is able to break spoken words into parts/ syllables, i.e. hap-py
• Begins to break words into separate sounds or phonemes
• Has awareness of beginning sounds of words
• Identifies more letter names
• Can make some letter-sound matches
Kindergarten, age 5-6
• Able to match most letters with their sounds
• Can match two rhyming words, can identify a non-rhyming word in a group of three words
• Identifies most upper and lower case letters
• Understands that print is read left to right and top to bottom
• Begins to match spoken words with written words
• Matches words that begin with the same sound
• Begins to blend and put sounds together to make words
• Continues to count parts/syllables in words
• Can count sounds/phonemes within a short word
• Understands sequencing within a word
• Decodes simple words
• Begins to write stories and uses inventive spelling
• Recognizes some frequently used words by sight
First Grade, ages 6-7
• Counts sounds/phonemes within longer words
• Should begin to identify which sounds remain when one sound is taken away or deleted.
• Initially start with whole word deletion in compound words as in: cowboy, take away cow what is left? (boy) Then with a single word: say /sat/, take away the /s/ sound what is left? /at/
• Blends sounds in three phoneme words (i.e. /b/ /a/ /t/ ® bat)
• Matches letters to sounds and can decode unknown words
• Can decode one-syllable words with short vowel sounds in them
• Can recognize sounds of word families
• Can read most texts designed for first grade
• Recognizes more sight words
• Can spell short words accurately
• Can read simple directions
• Self-corrects if what is read does not fit context
• Knows or can read three to five hundred words
Second Grade, ages 7-8
• Consistently matches letters to sounds to read unknown words
• Begins to read with fluency
• Reads and understands text meant for second grade, such as fiction and non-fiction
• Spells with greater accuracy, identifying all sounds in a word
• Begins to be able to break apart multi-syllabic words, as well as read more multi-syllabic words
• Reads independently
Third Grade, ages 8-9
• Reads with fluency and comprehension regarding any material for third grade
• Reads longer stories and chapter books
• Uses simple comprehension strategies, i.e. summarizing main ideas, story retelling to help remember what is read
• Greater accuracy in spelling
• Uses a dictionary to look up words
• Understands more about prefixes, suffixes, and roots of words and their meanings
• Enjoys listening to stories and looking at books
• Knows that print carries a message
• Interested in the sounds of language; repeats and plays with sounds, rhyming
• Can easily identify their name
• Easily matches letters to their sounds
• Fluent reading and legible writing
• Is aware that sentences and words come apart