Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
As a child completes kindergarten, he or she should demonstrate the following skills.
Listening Skills
- Understands age-appropriate stories when read out loud
- Follows simple conversation.
- Follows simple oral directions in order, such as “Pick a book, and sit down.”
- Understands what is being taught in class
Talking Skills
- Answers simple questions like, “Did you eat lunch?”
- Answers open-ended questions like, “What did you do in school today?”
- Retells stories, parts of stories or events
- Talks about things that happened during the day
- Asks questions and makes comments
- Takes turns and stays on topic when talking
- Shows interest in what others are saying
- Begins conversations freely
Reading Skills
- Understands that reading a book in English occurs from front to back, top to bottom and left to right.
- Knows that spoken words are comprised of speech sounds
- Identifies words that rhyme like cat and hat, brown and town
- Knows that some words begin with the same sound like sun, sand and soup
- Distinguishes uppercase and lowercase letters
- Comprehends that each letter represents speech sounds
- Knows some sight words like the, she, cat and with
- “Reads” picture books from memory
- Tells a story by looking at pictures in a book
Writing Skills
- Prints first and last name
- Write uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet
- Draws pictures that tell a story and can use words about the picture
