Did your first grader learn the skills they need to be ready for next year? Here’s a rough idea of the academic, social-emotional, gross motor, and fine motor skills that kids acquire in first grade. If your child is not proficient in some of these areas, don’t worry. No two kids are alike, especially when it comes to hitting developmental benchmarks. Choose a few to work on this summer, but keep things low pressure — for you and for your child!
By the end of 1st grade, kids should be able to:
- Work independently for short periods of time.
- Have a conversation about what a situation is like from another person鈥檚 point of view.
- Distinguish left from right.
- Attempt to write and spell new words phonetically.
- Read and write common words such as where and every. (See a list of 1st grade words here.)
- Write complete sentences with correct capitalization and punctuation (get extra punctuation practice).
- Read first grade-level books aloud with accuracy and understanding (find great books for 1st graders here).
- Tell time to the nearest hour and half-hour using analog and digital clocks (get extra time-telling practice).
- Do addition problems with sums up to 20 (get extra addition practice).
- Do subtraction problems with numbers 0 to 20 (get extra subtraction practice).
- Kick a soccer ball at a target that is 15 feet away. (See 1st grade PE challenges.)
- Ride a bike without training wheels.
- Tie their shoelaces.
- Cut shapes with scissors out of paper.
- Know when to tell the truth, and when it is okay to make up a story during playtime. (Read more about kids and honesty.)
Find out more about your first grader and reading, writing, language arts, math, science, social studies, music, art, and PE.
