I would guess that a fair number of kids go into K already reading- I'm trying to get an idea as to where my kid might fit in the scheme of things.....
In my DS5's class, I'd say more than half the kids have trouble sounding out words, even words they've been primed on, but perhaps four or five among the other half can make it through a beginner book on their own. Anything past a beginner/picture book seems like outlier territory. (Sorry, I've never bothered to study the reading level system...)
Like Geo, I'm finding it hard to say; because of my DS's strong reading skills and the fact that he spends as many hours reading as we let him, he has been exempted from the "we're sending a book home with your child" program, and I suspect what we're getting is pretty custom-fit.
In Math, our district has started adopting Common Core Math for the kindergartners. What DS5 is getting for math in kindy is way above what DS9 got four years ago. They did a lot of counting by ones, twos, fives, tens, but now they are working on single-digit addition. I don't know exactly what the benchmark is for what they are supposed to master this year, but I would bet some kids are still struggling with the counting and a few are above benchmark.
There is just a huge range in kindergarten. I don't think what the other kids can do is a primary concern for me; I did let the teachers know at the start of the year what my DS5 could do that I knew was out of the norm, and I asked them to be watchful about book selection. There was a pullout reading group with the librarian that DS loved (it got him out of the phonics instruction). It has worked nicely for the most part.
Does that help?
DeeDee
