Kindergarten Essential Skills
by Mickie Janecek
December 05, 2007
Gering Public Schools
Kindergarten Essential Skills List
Reading-Our goal is for your child to do the following by the
end of Kindergarten:
• Read randomly selected words off of Dolch Word Lists
(preprimer)
• Know 36 phonograms
• Know letters A-Z
• Know sounds A-Z
• Know if randomly selected words rhyme; hear and identify rhyming
words
• Know beginning sounds of words
• Say the alphabet
• Know parts of book: title page, front cover, back cover, and
illustrator/author
• Be able to answer comprehension questions about stories that are
read to them
• Be able to retell stories that are read to them
• Be able to print following appropriate progression (left to right
and top to bottom)
• Print randomly selected lower and upper case letters on unlined
paper
• Print first and last name
• Identify basic punctuation (capitalize beginning word of
sentences, question mark, period, comma, and exclamation point)
Math-Our goal is for your child to be able to do the following
by the end of Kindergarten:
• Write numbers 1-20
• Correctly read randomly selected numbers between 1 and 100
• Count objects using 1 to 1 correspondence to 20
• Demonstrate meaning of words like longest, shortest, more, less,
some, next, and places-i.e. first, tenth
• Be able to sort similar objects into groups
• Be able to measure with nonstandard units (heavier vs. lighter,
hot vs. cold, and measure lines with nails, toothpicks, paper
clips)
• Know the following-over/under, above/below, behind/in front of,
left/right, up/down, near/far
• Name and recognize shapes: square, rectangle, circle,
triangle
