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Alabama Standards

Alabama Kindergarten ELA Standards

All 45 Alabama English language arts standards for kindergarten, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Alabama State Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

45 standards

Recurring Standards for K-3

5 standards
K.R1
Listen carefully in partner, small-group, and whole-class talks while following the class rules for taking part, like raising a hand to speak.
K.R2
Match sounds to the letters that spell them and break words into parts to read and spell words correctly, like sat and map.
K.R3
Grow what you know about the world and learn new words by talking, reading, and writing, like animal names from a class book.
K.R4
Use tablets, class computers, and other digital tools safely and responsibly to find information and write, alone or with classmates.
K.R5
Take writing through the steps of planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing in different forms, like a class book page about a pet.

Oral Language

7 standards
K.1
With help, follow talk rules, speak clearly, use endings like -s and -ed and plurals like mice, and keep a back-and-forth conversation going.
K.2
Take an active part in teacher-led reading and peer talks that build the world knowledge children need first to learn to read and then to learn from reading.
K.3
Read along with the teacher and class during choral and shared reading, like joining in on a repeated line in a big book.
K.4
With help, ask and answer questions to get help, find out facts, or make sense of something heard, read, or watched.
K.5
With help, share ideas and feelings aloud in complete, well-ordered sentences, speaking clearly and describing people, places, and events from a short story.
K.6
Use position and time words correctly, like above, behind, before, and after.
K.7
Repeat back and carry out directions with one or two steps, like get your folder and then sit on the rug.

Concepts of Print

1 standard
K.8
Show how print works, like following words left to right and top to bottom, pointing to each word, finding where sentences start and end, and telling letters from words.

Phonological Awareness/Phonemic Awareness

1 standard
K.9
Work with sounds in spoken words, like rhyming, counting syllables, naming first, middle, and last sounds, and blending or breaking up words with three or four sounds.

Phonics

1 standard
K.10
Use letter-sound knowledge to read and spell words alone and in decodable books, like short-vowel words such as hop, open syllables like me, silent-e words, and sh.

Fluency

6 standards
K.11
Name every capital and lowercase letter quickly and correctly when the letters are shown in mixed-up order.
K.12
Put the letters of the alphabet in order from a to z and name them quickly and correctly.
K.13
With help, spot and name two-letter sound spellings like sh, ch, th, wh, ck, and ng, plus the letter pair qu.
K.14
Use the letter-sound matches already taught to read decodable words quickly and correctly, both in lists and in sentences.
K.15
Read decodable books aloud again and again until the reading sounds smooth, accurate, and expressive at a pace that helps understanding.
K.16
Read kindergarten sight words like the, see, and is quickly and correctly without sounding them out.

Vocabulary

5 standards
K.17
With help, use new school and topic words when speaking and connect them to words and ideas already known.
K.18
Learn and correctly use a new meaning for a word already known, like bat as an animal and bat for baseball.
K.19
Ask and answer questions about new words heard or read, and tell how words relate, like big and large or hot and cold.
K.20
Sort pictures into groups that share a feature, like fruits or farm animals, and name the groups using known and new words.
K.21
Use new and familiar nouns, verbs, and describing words to say and build fuller sentences in class talks and early writing.

Comprehension

11 standards
K.22
Share what was learned from nonfiction read-alouds by joining topic talks with classmates or by drawing or writing about it.
K.23
With help, arrange and rearrange words to build simple statements and questions, learning how word order shapes meaning.
K.24
With help, name common kinds of texts, like stories, fairy tales, poems, and nonfiction books, and point out their features.
K.25
With help, figure out what a text is about using the title, headings, pictures, and clues in the words.
K.26
With help, tell how the pictures in a book connect to the words on the page.
K.27
Name and describe the characters, setting, and key events of a story, and with help retell it aloud in order.
K.28
With help, use clues in a story to find its main idea and guess how it will end.
K.29
With help, name what a nonfiction text is mostly about and the important details that tell about it.
K.30
With help, ask and answer questions about important details in stories and in nonfiction books.
K.31
With help, check understanding while reading by stopping to sum up and going back to reread when something is confusing.
K.32
With help, compare two texts, like telling a story from a fact book, comparing what characters go through, or comparing two fact books on one topic.

Writing

8 standards
K.33
Say ideas aloud, then show them with drawings and early writing, like a picture with a few labeled words.
K.34
Hold a pencil correctly and print neat capital and lowercase letters on the lines, and with help write first and last names and use mostly lowercase letters.
K.35
Spell words by writing a common spelling for each sound, and with help spell short words like at and sun and regular sight words.
K.36
Use correct grammar in speech and writing, and with help write full sentences with spaces between words, capitals for the first word, I, and names, and an end mark.
K.37
Join shared and solo writing of many kinds, like lists and labels, stories in order, opinions with a reason, and fact pieces, by drawing, dictating, or writing.
K.38
Make drawings and writing better by planning, revising, and editing them with ideas from classmates and adults.
K.39
Join class research and writing projects that answer a question or tell about a topic, using personal memories and sources the teacher provides.
K.40
With help, use different digital tools to create and share writing, both alone and with classmates.

The official Alabama documents

The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Alabama's standards, not the official wording, which Alabama State Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.