Teachers in every grade level have standards that are essential for students to master in order to be successful in the next grade. Here's what each grade level has been focusing on recently:
Kindergarten
Standard: Print all uppercase and lowercase letters, focusing on pencil grasp, letter formation and legibility.
How can I support this at home? Pencil grasp is very important in kindergarten, so important that it is now part of our state standards. Correct pencil grasp can improve speed and neatness of writing. An incorrect grasp can lead to extra strain on the muscles which will lead to fatigue (tiredness) and students will be less likely to write for an extended amount of time. Here is a child friendly video on correct pencil grasp shared by our occupational therapists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGzrONaFxRg
This explains different grasps and gives fine motor activities:
https://www.growinghandsonkids.com/pencil-grasp-activities.html
You child's teacher can provide you with additional pages to practice for correct letter formation for uppercase and lowercase letters. The way that students form their letters really does matter! Please reach out to your child's teacher if you have questions.
First Grade
Standard: Read high-frequency words commonly found in grade appropriate text with accuracy and automaticity.
How can I support this at home? Practice having your child read AND write the following words from the first quarter: of, where, was, said, what, they, some, been
First graders should also be able to read and write the following words from kindergarten: a, to, see, I, like, is, the, am, you, and, will, my, look, said, her, all, for, an, was, do, are, how, has, as
Second Grade
Standard: Retell a text to enhance comprehension: include main story elements (character, setting, important events that move the plot forward) in a logical sequence (beginning, middle, end) in a literacy text.
How can I support this at home? Read, Stop, Retell is one way to practice this with your child. Read a few pages, stop, and retell who the characters are, describe the setting (time and place), and major events in order. This can be done out loud and also in writing using sticky notes.
Third Grade
Standard: Explain how basic text features contribute to the overall meaning in an informational text.
How can I support this at home? Look for examples of titles, headings, subheadings, illustrations, photographs, captions, graphs, glossaries, tables of content, and maps in non-fiction materials like books and magazines. Talk with your student about the information they learn from these features. Explain how the information learned in a caption or map, for example, helps us better understand the main part of the text.
Fourth Grade
Standard: Explain how basic text features contribute to meaning in an informational text; identify the text structures of problem and solution, chronological, and compare and contrast.
How can I support this at home? There are two parts to this standard. First, look for examples of titles, headings, subheadings, illustrations, photographs, captions, graphs, glossaries, tables of content, and maps in non-fiction materials like books and magazines. Talk with your student about the information they learn from these. Explain how the information learned in a caption or map, for example, helps us better understand the main part of the text. Second, when reading informational text, pay close attention to how the author organizes the information. Does it describe a problem and present a solution (problem and solution)? Does it present events in the order in which they happened (chronological)? Does it explain similarities and differences between ideas, place, people, objects, or topics (compare and contrast)? Why did the author organize the information in this particular way?
Fifth Grade
Standard: Summarize a text to enhance comprehension-include plot, theme and relevant key details for a literary (fictional) text.
How can I support this at home? To summarize a text is to condense a text, or part of a text, into its most important ideas. Plot is the series of events in the story, while theme is the major idea or underlying message that the author is trying to share. Fifth graders must be able to determine both explicit themes (directly stated in the text by the narrator or a character) AND implied themes (not explicitly stated and must be inferred by the reader).
SWBST is one strategy to try- Somebody (character), Wanted (what the character wants/motivations/goals), But (what is the problem or conflict/what gets in the way), So (how the character tries to solve the problem), Then (what was the resolution to the story).
