Continuing to build on the first three literacy stages, children are moving into the regular grade system and should be starting the first grade. Despite the continuation of a curriculum to guide their literacy, parents should still nurture literacy development outside of school.
The list below highlights some of the new developments that a parent can expect to see by the time their child finishes the first grade. Note: Children vary in how they develop and learn – some skills should develop in the next literacy stage in they are not achieved at this stage.
Most 6 year olds should be able to:
- participate in various literary activities voluntarily (i.e. choosing books to read, writing notes to a parent)
Reading
- start using a variety of literary elements to help with his/her reading (e.g. re-reading a paragraph, predicting what will happen, questioning part of the story, using pictures or visual cues)
- monitor her/his own reading; self-correct when a word does not fit in context (by using visual cues)
- read and understand both fiction and nonfiction text at grade level
- predict what will happen next in a story; justify his/her prediction with back-up information
- describe any new information collected from texts in her/his own words
- read and comprehend simple written instructions
- observe when simple sentence might not be complete or fail to make sense
- answer simple comprehension questions based on the material s/he read
Writing
- write about topic that mean a lot to him/her
- use basic punctuation and capitalization
- produce her/his own written texts for others to read
- compose a draft of his/her writing using parts of the writing process (e.g. planning, rereading for meaning or self-correction)
- create various types of text (e.g. short stories, journal entries)
- demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between written text and illustrations
Spelling
- identify more an increasing vocabulary of words by sight
- decode one-syllable and nonsense words by sounding out unknown words
- recognize some common, irregularly spelled words by sight (e.g. have, said, where)
- retain a vocabulary of 300 to 500 written words
- count the number of syllables in a word
- spell three- and four-letter short vowel words correctly
- use invented spelling / phonics knowledge to try to spell new words
Phonics
- blend or segment the sounds of most one-syllable words
- use letter-sound recognition to sound out unknown words when reading new texts
- sound out major sounds in a word when trying to spell
- identify new words by using letter-sound matches or parts of words
Speaking / Listening
- read and retell stories that are familiar to them
- indicate prior knowledge of topics in informational (nonfiction) texts
- read aloud more accurately; understand grade level text
- discuss how, what and why questions when reading nonfiction texts
- show an increased vocabulary of words orally (when speaking with others)