What a child should know by grade 1: reading, writing, math

Parents of future first-graders often joke that preparing a child for school is as difficult as an astronaut for a first flight. And partly true. Constant changes in educational standards lead moms and dads, and grandparents especially, in confusion. And before the parents who are collecting the child for school, the question arises of what exactly the child should know by the first grade.

It’s good to start preparing for school a year before entering. This will give the kid the opportunity to meet with teachers and choose his “second mother”, adapt to new school conditions and develop the skills necessary for a future first-grader.

But if there is no such opportunity or time has already been lost, it does not matter. Let us consider in detail everything that a child should know by the 1st grade according to GEF.

Psychological aspects of school readiness

The most important skill that a child going to first grade should possess is not knowledge in one or another discipline, but his psychological readiness for school. It includes the ability to perceive new knowledge, join a new children's team, perseverance. The child’s psychological immaturity can turn an elementary school into an overwhelming burden and discourage the desire to learn.

So that in the first grade, the baby does not encounter problems such as the non-assimilation of material in mathematics or writing due to his restlessness or distracted attention, the parents' primary task is to help the baby in overcoming psychological problems. Of course, the task of psychological preparation for school is for the teachers and the psychologist of the kindergarten, but you should not rely on other people completely and completely. No matter how professional they are, no one knows your child better than you.

Readiness Check

So, we will consider the psychological skills that will help the baby easily meet the new stage of his life - admission to school.

Given compulsory admission to school after the child reaches the age of six, parents and children have no choice: go to school or wait again.

The psychological preparation of children for school is entirely in the hands of his parents. The child will need their care, attention and support when he takes the first steps on his new school path. Relatives and friends will help to cope with the difficulties of this life stage and share the first joys and successes.

Is your kid ready for school?

The main indicator of readiness to study in the first grade without any problems, after psychological aspects, is the development of speech in the baby. It is the development of the speech apparatus that determines the level of preparation of the child and serves as the main criterion for its development as a whole.

For school to be a joy, applicants must:

• Pronounce all sounds clearly and correctly.
• Feel the rhythm of speech (pronounce all syllables in words with a difficult pronunciation).
• To be able to participate in the general discussion, do not be shy to speak with the whole class.
• Highlight given sounds in the general flow of speech.
• Be able to pose questions on assignment.
• Learn to give a detailed answer to the question.

In addition to having competent and correct speech, a number of requirements are presented to the future student. Consider in detail what a child should know by grade 1 and what skills to possess in each subject.

Maths

For the successful mastering of the 1st grade material in mathematics, the preschooler must:

1. Know the name of the numbers from 0 to 9 and count to 10.
2. Continue a series of numbers from any digit, not only from 1.
3. Know the "neighbors" of each digit, counting to 10.
4. Name the larger and smaller of the two numbers within 10.
5. Distinguish simple geometric shapes: square, rhombus, circle and triangle.
6. To cope with the simplest mathematical problems that require adding numbers or subtracting one from the other.
7. Form items into groups, taking into account their color, shape, size.

How to help

Helping your child learn the necessary math skills is easy. Play a game with him - count the birds outside the window, the houses that you pass, the cars, while you are traveling in transport.

While walking in the park, draw numbers with a stick on the ground, lay them out of small pebbles or write on the asphalt with colored crayons.

Play with the kid in school. Verbally ask a simple task: the cat has 2 pink bows and 3 blue ones. And how many are there? The child can write the answer on a piece of paper. This will help him to perceive tasks by ear and practice writing numbers.

Reading

When asked whether a child should be able to read in syllables at 5-6 years old, there is no single answer. The discussion on this subject continues among both mothers and teachers. Adherents of reading skills take advantage of the argument of a busy school curriculum. Their opponents argue that reading instruction is best left to professionals.

Therefore, to teach your child to read or not, everyone decides for himself. And it depends on the individual characteristics of the baby. If you managed to instill an interest in letters in a playful way, and your daughter or son learned to read, great!

But if attempts to teach a child to read lead to strong resistance on his part, do not insist. Otherwise, you risk forever discouraging his love not only for books, but also for study in general.

If the child is not required to read syllables at 5-6 years old, then he should have some basic skills:

• Know the letters and understand what sounds they correspond to.
• Select a given sound from a word.
• Come up with the words for the desired letter.
• To know what a sentence is, to find its beginning and end.
• To understand the text heard, to be able to analyze it.
• Give answers to questions to the text.

Instill your child a love of literature. Read together those books that interest him. It can be animal stories, fairy tales or children's magazines. Play words more often. You can combine these games with a ball game. Choose words by a certain letter, look for a letter in different words, make new words from a word, rearranging letters, divide words into syllables (you can sing them).

Letter

If the question of whether to teach a child to read is controversial, then teaching him to write capital letters is definitely not worth it. After all, the rules for writing letters are slightly, but still changing. And retraining a child to write on them is much more difficult than teaching someone who has never tried to write.

But for successful teaching of writing, there are criteria that a child should know by grade 1:

1. Understand the difference between consonants and vowels.
2. Know the difference between sound and letter.
3. Find a letter at the beginning, middle or end of a word.
4. Be able to break a word into syllables.

Developing hand motility

If you do not need to teach the kid to write yourself, then you need to develop his fine motor skills. To do this, it is worth disassembling with a child how:

• Hold a pen in your hand (pencil, brush for drawing).
• Add a given geometric shape from matches or counting sticks.
• To depict an animal, a person.
• Paint over without going over the edge.
• Draw lines without using a ruler.
• Sculpt the desired figure out of plasticine.
• Cut drawn elements from paper.
• Sketch block letters from the sample.

Take time to develop motor skills. For this, modeling, drawing, folding puzzles and creating applications are suitable. Good finger motility will help the future student not only with creative tasks at school, but also develops beautiful handwriting and smooth speech.

When you go to school, be prepared to check what your child needs to know by grade 1. Tests or an oral form of interview - the procedure is chosen at the discretion of the administration of the educational institution in which you seek to get.

Household skills needed for a child who is in first grade.

In addition to what a child should know by the 1st grade, there are a number of skills that he needs at home for a successful “school career”. Faster and easier to get used to the school schedule is the child who is responsible for his or her responsibilities at home. Most preschoolers already know how to wash themselves, clean the bed and put things on their own.

In preparation for the school phase of the child’s life, it is worth teaching him the following:

• Folding your backpack yourself. To begin with, he will do it under the dictation of an adult. Then it is enough to double-check whether everything is in place. And the third stage is the child’s own responsibility for the things collected.
• Prepare in the evening the clothes in which she will go to classes.
• Observe the regime of the day and week. In order not to miss additional classes or training, you can make notes on the calendar a bright marker.
• Maintain cleanliness in your “workplace”. And it is the duty of mothers and fathers to control the correct lighting and the height of the chair.

For the first time, having familiarized yourself with the list of skills necessary for a first-grader, you may be shocked. But do not panic. Indeed, every year schools are replenished with new first-graders, whose level of training is very different from the established standards. The most important thing is to help the child believe in himself, his strength. Going to first grade, the baby must be sure that you will come to his aid at any time.

Get ready for school with your whole family, play with your child in a playful way and motivate him for success. Then you can easily give a positive answer to the question of whether the child is ready for school.