The following standards offer a focus for instruction each year and help ensure that students gain adequate exposure to a range of texts and tasks. Rigor is also infused through the requirement that students read increasingly complex texts through the grades. Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades. (Make this into a rollover)
Print Concepts Phonological Awareness Phonics and Word Recognition Fluency
1 2 3 4
Kindergarten
1. Demonstrate understanding of
the organization and basic
features of print.
a. Follow words from left to right,
top to bottom, and page by
page.
b. Recognize that spoken words
are represented in written
language by specific sequences
of letters.
c. Understand that words are
separated by spaces in print.
d. Recognize and name all upper-
and lowercase letters of the
alphabet.
1st Grade
1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic
features of print.
a. Recognize the distinguishing
features of a sentence (e.g.,
first word, capitalization,
ending punctuation).
Note: In kindergarten, children are expected to demonstrate increasing awareness and competence in the areas above.
Kindergarten
2. Demonstrate understanding of
spoken words, syllables, and
sounds (phonemes).
a. Recognize and produce
rhyming words.
b. Count, pronounce, blend, and
segment syllables in spoken
words.
c. Blend and segment onsets and
rimes of single-syllable spoken
words.
d. Isolate and pronounce the
initial, medial vowel, and final
sounds (phonemes) in three-
phoneme (consonant-vowel-
consonant, or CVC) words.*
(This does not include CVCs
ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)
e. Add or substitute individual
sounds (phonemes) in simple,
one-syllable words to make
new words.
f. Blend two to three phonemes
into recognizable words. CA
*Words, syllables, or phonemes written in /slashes/ refer to their pronunciation or phonology. Thus, /CVC/ is a word with three phonemes regardless of the number of letters in the spelling of the word.
​
1st Grade
2. Demonstrate understanding of
spoken words, syllables, and
sounds (phonemes).
a. Distinguish long from short
vowel sounds in spoken single-
syllable words.
b. Orally produce single-syllable
words by blending sounds
(phonemes), including
consonant blends.
c. Isolate and pronounce initial,
medial vowel, and final sounds
(phonemes) in spoken single-
syllable words. d. Segment
spoken single-syllable words
into their complete sequence
of individual sounds
(phonemes).
Kindergarten
3. Know and apply grade-level
phonics and word analysis skills
in decoding words both in
isolation and in text. CA
a. Demonstrate basic knowledge
of one-to-one letter-sound
correspondences by producing
the primary sounds or many of
the most frequent sounds for
each consonant.
b. Associate the long and short
sounds with common spellings
(graphemes) for the five major
vowels. (Identify which letters
represent the five major vowels
[Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, and Uu] and know
the long and short sound of
each vowel. More complex long
vowel graphemes and spellings
are targeted in the grade 1
phonics standards.) CA
c. Read common high-frequency
words by sight (e.g., the, of, to,
you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
d. Distinguish between similarly
spelled words by identifying the
sounds of the letters that differ.
1st Grade
3. Know and apply grade-level
phonics and word analysis skills
in decoding words both in
isolation and in text. CA
a. Know the spelling-sound
correspondences for common
consonant digraphs.
b. Decode regularly spelled one-
syllable words.
c. Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.
d. Use knowledge that every syllable
must have a vowel sound to
determine the number of syllables
in a printed word.
e. Decode two-syllable words
following basic patterns by
breaking the words into syllables.
f. Read words with inflectional
endings.
g. Recognize and read grade-
appropriate irregularly spelled
words.
​
2nd Grade
3. Know and apply grade-level
phonics and word analysis skills
in decoding words both in
isolation and in text. CA
a. Distinguish long and short
vowels when reading regularly
spelled one-syllable words.
b. Know spelling-sound
correspondences for additional
common vowel teams.
c. Decode regularly spelled two-
syllable words with long vowels. d. Decode words with common
prefixes and suffixes.
e. Identify words with inconsistent
but common spelling-sound
correspondences.
f. Recognize and read grade-
appropriate irregularly spelled
words.
​
​
3rd Grade
3. Know and apply grade-level
phonics and word analysis skills
in decoding words both in
isolation and in text. CA
a. Identify and know the meaning
of the most common prefixes
and derivational suffixes.
b. Decode words with common
Latin suffixes.
c. Decode multisyllable words.
d. Read grade-appropriate
irregularly spelled words.
​
​
4th Grade
3. Know and apply grade-level
phonics and word analysis skills
in decoding words.
a. Use combined knowledge of all
letter-sound correspondences,
syllabication patterns, and
morphology (e.g., roots and
affixes) to read accurately
unfamiliar multisyllabic words in
context and out of context.
​
5th Grade
3. Know and apply grade-level
phonics and word analysis skills
in decoding words.
a. Use combined knowledge of all
lettersound correspondences,
syllabication patterns, and
morphology (e.g., roots and
affixes) to read accurately
unfamiliar multisyllabic words in
context and out of context.
Kindergarten
4. Read emergent-reader texts with
purpose and understanding.
1st Grade
4. Read with sufficient accuracy and
fluency to support
comprehension.
a. Read on-level text with purpose
and understanding.
b. Read on-level text orally with
accuracy, appropriate rate, and
expression on successive readings. c. Use context to confirm or self-
correct word recognition and
understanding, rereading as
necessary
2nd Grade
4. Read with sufficient accuracy and
fluency to support
comprehension.
a. Read on-level text with purpose
and understanding. b. Read on-
level text orally with accuracy,
appropriate rate, and expression
on successive readings.
c. Use context to confirm or self-
correct word recognition and
understanding, rereading as
necessary.
3rd Grade
4. Read with sufficient accuracy and
fluency to support
comprehension.
a. Read on-level text with purpose
and understanding.
b. Read on-level prose and poetry
orally with accuracy, appropriate
rate, and expression on
successive readings
c. Use context to confirm or self-
correct word recognition and
understanding, rereading as
necessary.
4th Grade
4. Read with sufficient accuracy and
fluency to support
comprehension.
a. Read on-level text with purpose
and understanding.
b. Read on-level prose and poetry
orally with accuracy, appropriate
rate, and expression on
successive readings.
c. Use context to confirm or self-
correct word recognition and
understanding, rereading as
necessary.
5th Grade
4. Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. a. Read on-level text with purpose and understanding. b. Read on-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings. c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
RF
Reading Standards for Foundational Skills K–5 From page 17
These standards are directed toward fostering students’ understanding and working knowledge of concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other basic conventions of the English writing system. These foundational skills are not an end in and of themselves; rather, they are necessary and important components of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to develop proficient readers with the capacity to comprehend texts across a range of types and disciplines. Instruction should be differentiated: good readers will need much less practice with these concepts than struggling readers will. The point is to teach students what they need to learn and not what they already know—to discern when particular children or activities warrant more or less attention.
