1st Grade Reading Expectations

To Meet the Benchmark, 1st grade students should beinstructionalat Level G (independent F) by January and LevelJ (independent I) by June. A child on grade level, Meeting the Benchmark,maybe at the following levels on the following months. Again, reading is developmental and these are APPROXIMATE:

September ~ C October ~ D November ~ E December ~ F

January ~ G February ~ G/H March ~ H/I April ~ I

May ~ I/J June ~ J

AT LEVELS C – J,
A CHILD’S READING LEVEL IS DETERMINED BY:

• Is the child reading with 94%-95% accuracy? (Examples of acceptable accuracy: 94%: 3 errors on 53-54 words, 4 errors on 72-73 words, 5 errors on 87-90 words, 8 errors on 130-137 words, 9 errors on 174-177 words / 95%: 11 errors on 202-207 words, 13 errors on 253 words, 14 errors on 258 words)
• Starting at Level I the child is timed. At least 40 Words Per Minute Meets the Benchmark for Level I, and 45 WPM for Level J.
• Is the child using a variety of strategies (pictures, letter sounds, word chunks, skip it read on go back, asking: Does it look right? Sound right? Make sense?) to figure out unknown words?
• Does the child recognize errors as he/she reads and fixes them?
• Does the child read in longer phrases?
• Before the child reads, the child does a “picture walk.” Is he/she orally connecting with at least 3-4 key events without prompting?
• After reading, and with the book closed, the child does a retelling. Is he/she referring to the characters by name and including all of the important details from the beginning, middle, end in sequence?
• Does the child use the important language and vocabulary from the text in the retelling?
• Can the child retell the story on his/her own without prompts or questions?
• Can the child tell a favorite part and why? We are looking for a response that requires higher level thinking, for example inferring the author’s message in the story, or stating an action that happened in the text with a personal connection.
• Can the child make a connection with this text ~ does it remind the child of another text, a movie or TV show, or something in his/her own life? We are looking for connections that show a deeper understanding of the story. For example, on a fiction story about reusing objects, a connection could be about the importance of recycling.
• If it is nonfiction, can the child quickly locate and use the nonfiction text features to answer questions? (timelines, maps, table of contents, glossary, captions, charts, etc.)

Your child will be asked who reads to or with him/her at home, and to share a title and specific details about a favorite book. There will also be a survey given asking the child: What books have you finished lately? What are you reading at school now? What are you reading at home now? What are 3 things you do well as a reader? What are 3 things you need to work on to become a better reader?

***When you read at home with your child, it is important to have your child point to each word, and figure out unknown words on his/her own by:
a. Look at the picture b. Sound it out c. Skip it, read on, go back
d. Look for familiar chunks in the word, for example in “wagon” there’s “ag” as in “bag” and the chunk “on” e. Always ask self “does that look right, sound right, make sense?”

Always read each book 3x for fluency and accuracy.

OTHER 1STGRADE ASSESSMENTS / REQUIREMENTS

Each are 1 minute tests

  • September: How many letters can you name (upper and lower case mixed).
  • September: Segment individual sounds heard in a word, for example “apple” /a/ /p/ /l/ and “holes” is /h/ /o/ /l/ /z/.
  • Beginning and Middle of Year: Hearing and Recording Sounds. The teacher dictates a sentence that the child writes correctly and/or phonetically, recording all of the sounds he/she hears, putting spaces between words.
  • All Year: Read 3 letter short vowel nonsense words ~ these can be sounded out ~ for example “sil” “tob” “paj” “zev” “nud” The goal is for the child to recognize these chunks automatically, not sounding out sound by sound.
  • Middle and End of Year: Oral reading fluency ~ how many words correct in a story can the child read in one minute? How many details about what he/she just read can he/she recall?

What Does An ADVANCED1st GraderLook Like While Applying Strategies?

Making Connections/Prior Knowledge / Uses background knowledge to enhance comprehension and interpretation. Makes text-to-text and text-to-self connections; uses knowledge of familiar authors to make predictions (For ex. Curious George books often end the same way.)
Questioning / Asks questions to enhance meaning; can easily answer questions; beginning awareness of different types of questions~ literal (answers are IN the text) and inferential (answers come from life experience)
Visualizing/Sensory Imagery / Describes own sensory images; images can be elaborated from the literal text or existing picture; demonstrated using any modality or media
Determining Importance / Identifies words, characters, and/or events as more important to overall meaning; makes some attempt to explain reasoning
Monitoring Comprehension / Identifies location and type of difficulty he/she had while reading and articulates the need to solve the problem
Inferring / Draws conclusions and makes predictions using examples from the text
Retelling / Retells elements of the text in logical sequence; may include some extension to overall theme, message, background knowledge