Your Child's Communication: Kindergarten
By the end of kindergarten, your child should be able to do the following tasks in each area.
Listening
- Follow 1–2 simple directions in a row.
- Listen to and understand stories.
- Follow a simple conversation
Speaking
- Speak clearly enough so that most people understand what they say.
- Answer simple yes/no questions.
- Answer questions like, "What did you have for lunch today?"
- Retell a story or talk about something they did.
- Take turns talking and keep a conversation going.
- Show interest in and start conversations.
Reading
- Know how a book works. For example, we read from left to right and top to bottom in English.
- Understand that sounds make up words.
- Pick out words that rhyme, like cat and hat.
- Tell you the first sound in words, like mmmm for milk.
- Says the sounds for some letters, like buh for B.
- Identify upper- and lowercase letters.
- Recognize some words by sight.
- "Read" a few picture books from memory.
- Pretend to read by talking about pictures in a book.
Writing
- Print their first name.
- Draw a picture that tells a story. Write about the picture. Your child may write a letter or word to stand for a whole sentence or idea.
- Write upper- and lowercase letters. They may not be clear or neat.
- Write or type letters in no set order, like Mu zEos lx.
