Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What is Learned in Kindergarten (at least here)

A few people were wondering if what their children were doing was normal so I thought I'd use my son's Kindergarten report card to show what has to be known here by the end of the year. This might show you what most 5 year olds are learning.

I'm just going to list everything:

• Alphabet recognition (upper and lower case)
• letter sounds (haven't started yet this year)
• Sight words (haven't started yet): I, of, was, on, here, it, to, me, like, we, and, see, she, come, am, he, are, go, a, in, can, the, said, is, at, my, up, look, you, have
• Beginning sounds in words (start after winter break)
• recognize numbers 0-20
• rhyming words
• word awareness (awareness of words in a sentence)
• sound blending (blends sounds into a word)
• segments words (separates sounds in a word)
• identifies parts of a book
• identifies basic punctuation
• directionality (left, right, top, bottom)
• one-to-one matching (when asked to point to printed text as it is read orally)
• differentiates between letters, words and spacing in written text
• retells a story
• oral language (understands and uses age appropriate language)
• prints first and last name
• counts to 20
• knows basic colors
• identifies circle, square, triangle, rectangle
• sequences numerals 0 to 10
• identifies, continues and creates patterns
• sort sets by color, shape and size
• count number of objects in a set to 10
• knows forward/backward, in/out, front/back, right/left, above
• graphing
• knows longer, heavier, straight, ordinal positions
• time - morning, afternoon, night, yesterday, today, tomorrow, telling time to the hour
• money - names of coins and values
• using up to 10 concrete objects the student demonstrates the concepts of addition and subtraction

With the exception of just a few things, DD has known all of this stuff since (before?) she was 2. She doesn't write her full name or tell time yet and we haven't introduced money or graphing. Otherwise...eeesh. Thanks for sharing.

ETA: I just noticed it actually says "tells time to the hour"...so I guess I can check that one off too.

I have to say, that our kindergarten goals were a bit more academic. Kids had to skip count by 2's, 5's, 10's. Count and identify #'s to 100 and learned many, many more sight words. They had sight words and were learning alphabet sounds, etc from day 1. Every child did a little "research project" on the animal of their choosing. Our kindergarten teachers sent out a letter than kids should know how to identify letters before they get there. It was a very open ended classroom with extra projects and reading available.

The bad part was that 1st grade goals seemed only slightly higher and not nearly as open ended.

I wish our school had those same goals

Here's a sample of the report card where I am for K (note it loads REALLY slow):

Kindergarten Report Card PDF

I notice that down on page 4 it has the reading levels. They have DS listed as J or K right now (he has to complete each level before moving up - he tested in the 3rd grade). And I have to chuckle at the sight words b/c DS is the only now 1st grader to get the 200 sight words completed award on his first day of class.

Here is first grade

DS is already a 3-3+ in the 4th quarter requirements on most of these. I won't even post 2nd or 3rd (the end of the rubric grading system), but you get the picture.

I just cannot wait until GT pullout in January!!!

Thanks for posting this - very interesting. I am not sure my DS3 can identify the coins (never really tried) and he still needs help with writting his name (but can technically do it).

Lots of people LOVE our school! Their test scores actually look very similar to the gifted magnet we applied to (whatever that means). They just don't do much if anything for HG+ kids unfortunately. Nice community too.

Physical ability to write and ability to write one's name is two different things, just for the record. Your DS probably physically "writes" like a 3 year old, which would make you think he needs more help, when in fact, he just needs his body to catch up to his brain!!!

Wow, Hmm I guess I can't wait to get my son's K report card to see what it looks like.

But according to the above K report card my 4 yr old dd is mostly good even up to the 4th Q in most cases! My 5 yr old ds is reading in a mid 2nd grade level (or was in Sept when he took the STAR reading test) but I'm not sure how that falls in the reading levels your school uses.

I just checked and my 4 yr old knows 13 of the 18 high frequency words provided by my 5 yr olds teachers. Not sure if this is all the words they 'need' to know by end of year or what but I do know so far all they have worked on: I, my, like, and see.

I guess maybe I should more seriously consider she may be gifted too.

I think our public schools are pretty similar to the above (or a combination). I had trouble finding where they introduce time/money. Both DDs started K at 4 in a montessori school that seems to mainly teach about a year ahead from what I can tell (from the above lists and similar), although for social studies and science they may just be more in depth vs accelerated.

After last weeks parent/teacher conference for DD4, I'm still surprised that I can be shocked by the teachers. Just when I think I get it, I am presented with some new bit of information that blows my mind. Examples, 2 digit addition by a 4yo (no carrying) and the cat in the hat being too long for a 6yo......

Here we go again,