EARLY SKILLS BY GRADE

In its study of reading research, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, the National Research Council has come up with a list of skills students need to master in the early grades to remain on track for reading success. Here's a glimpse:

Kindergarten

Can name and recognize all the letters in the alphabet.

Understands that the sequence of letters in a word represents the sequence of sounds.

Recognizes some simple words by sight, such as "a," "the," "my," "you."

Correctly answers questions about stories read aloud.

Given a set of spoken words such as "dan, dan, den," can identify the first two as the same and the last one as different.

Given a set of spoken words like "dak, pat, zen," can recognize that the first two share a sound.

Can come up with a word that rhymes with a spoken word.

Can write his or her own name.