One question I have - when you mentioned you feel that your ds' K class is reading on a 1+ grade level - does that mean early first grade level or end of first grade level or 2nd grade level? I think how much focus I put on spending time trying to help my child read at home would depend on where that bar is - because honestly, the difference between close-to-end-of-K and 1st-grade-beginning-of-the-year isn't much, and you might find that if you just left your ds alone he would get there on his own over the summer.
That's a good question. I'm not an educator so I don't know what is expected of a K at the end of K. I think they are already in mid to late first grade work, but I know the expectations have changed all over with the core curriculum. All my prior experience is with my own childhood, and we only needed to know the alphabet at the end of K. The accelerated reader program is on levels, and they need to read level 4 with a 94% pass rate to get a satisfactory in reading. A recent level 4 book had words that included: Roger, asleep, hide, coat, boots, woke, where, here, they, look, sea, pirate, down, jolly, we, said, are, plus CVC short vowel words, plus consonant blends (sh, th, ch).
