Reading Skills
K-5
Reading
Foundational skills
One reading skill is considered the basic level of reading and progressively becomes more complex with each grade level.
Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. ("Common Core State Standard Intiative", 2014).
The following examples display one specific skill as it progresses with each grade level:
Kindergarten
Ability to read words that are common to the reader by sight.
1st grade
Ability to read words that have inflectional endings.
2nd grade
Ability to read words that are irregularly spelled and appropriate for this particular grade level.
3rd grade
Ability to read words that are irregularly spelled and appropriate for this particular grade level.
4th grade
Ability to read words that are unfamiliar and multisyllabic in and out of context
5th grade
Ability to read words that are unfamiliar and multisyllabic in and out of context
Informational Text Skills
Another reading standard or skill that students must complete according to the common core curriculum is with prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. This standard stays the same for all grades, it just becomes more complex the higher the grade level. There is less prompting and support from teachers with the higher the grade level. Many times teachers will give students a text to read (or teachers will read the text to students) and ask a number of questions about that specific text. The teacher may ask who the characters in story are, the setting of the story, what the problem is in the story was, and what was the solution in the story, just to name a few vital questions. A key component to help students obtain this skill is to stop periodically throughout the story to ask different question. Another procedure a teacher could incorporate in their lesson is graphic organizers. Students should have experience with narrative, rhetorical, expository, and functional texts, but they should also know how to map these texts and use those maps to help them understand. Further, students should be shown popular forms of expository text and how they are structured using graphic organizers, Rice, M., & Greer, D. (2014). Graphic organizers are great because they help put texts into perspective. It gives them an overview of the different components the story has. This standard and skill is put in place to ensure that the students comprehend the text that has been read, which is a key puzzle piece with reading.
Literature Skills
Lastly, this standard under states that a student in kindergarten should be able to recognize common types of texts such as story books and poems. Through each grade level this standard becomes more advanced requiring that the student delves a little deeper into a variety of texts. In order for a student to be able to build and master this area there is a learning process that each student must go through. To master this skill starting from kindergarten to the fifth grade the student must be able to understand the differences between certain texts and identify characteristics of that particular text. For example in kindergarten students must gain an understanding of what sentences, paragraphs, and illustrations are in stories; and in poems, being able to identify stanzas and rhymes. In first grade the students will build on this and will need to be able to identify how different types of texts differ from one another, such as, is the text fact or fiction or is it a literary or informational reading. In second grade the student must continue to apply what he has been learned about different text materials and be able to identify and describe the parts of the story: the beginning, middle, and end. They can use graphic organizers to discuss the sequence of events. In third grade they will learn to identify basic elements of different genres (fiction, drama, and poetry) and use segments from the stories to be able to write or discuss the reading. In fourth grade the student will continue to build these tasks by getting more detailed and explaining structural elements of different types of readings; such as, being able to identify the cast or setting in a dramatic play or identifying the verse or meter in a poem, and being to write or speak about these things easily. In fifth grade the students will apply their knowledge and will learn and identify terms associated with the readings, such as, scene or stanza. They will also be able to explain how all of structures of text come together to complete a story. For example, how do scenes from a dramatic play connect and how those connections reach the overall goal of the play.