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South Carolina Standards

South Carolina Kindergarten ELA Standards

All 53 South Carolina English language arts standards for kindergarten, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in South Carolina Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

53 standards

Overarching Expectations

6 standards
ELA.K.OE.1
Read and write for school and for personal reasons, building up to longer stretches, like a quiet reading time with picture books.
ELA.K.OE.2
Learn and share ideas through many kinds of texts, written, spoken, visual, digital and interactive, like picture books, songs and short videos.
ELA.K.OE.3
Make inferences, figuring out what a text does not say outright, to understand it better, like telling how a character feels from a picture.
ELA.K.OE.4
Work with classmates and listen closely to what others say, like taking turns during a group story time.
ELA.K.OE.5
Point to evidence to explain and back up thinking, like showing the picture that proves the dog is sad.
ELA.K.OE.6
Produce careful work that follows the expected layout, like putting a name at the top and drawing inside the box.

Foundations of Literacy

23 standards
ELA.K.F.1.1
Listen to a spoken sentence and count how many words are in it, like clapping once for each word.
ELA.K.F.1.2
Notice alliteration in spoken words, hearing when several of them start with the same sound, like silly snakes sing.
ELA.K.F.1.3
Hear and say rhyming pairs and tell them apart from pairs that do not rhyme, using pictures or spoken words, like cat and hat but not cat and dog.
ELA.K.F.1.4
Count, break apart and blend the three or four sounds in spoken one-syllable words, and the syllables in longer and compound words like rain-bow.
ELA.K.F.1.5
Blend and split the onset and rime of spoken one-syllable words, like joining /m/ and /op/ to say mop.
ELA.K.F.1.6
Say aloud the first, middle and last sounds in two- and three-sound words like up and sun, leaving out CVC words that end in l, r or x.
ELA.K.F.1.7
Change a spoken CVC word by taking away, adding or swapping its first or last sound, like turning cat into hat or cap.
ELA.K.F.2.1
Find the front cover, back cover and title page of a book, and show where the reading starts.
ELA.K.F.2.2
Point to each word while reading to match spoken words to printed ones, noticing the spaces that separate words.
ELA.K.F.2.3
Track print from left to right and top to bottom, sweeping back to start each new line, and turn pages in order.
ELA.K.F.2.4
Find where a sentence starts and stops by spotting its capital letter and its end mark, like a period.
ELA.K.F.2.5
Pick out single letters and whole words inside a sentence, like finding the word dog or the letter d.
ELA.K.F.3.1
Recognize, name and write every capital and lowercase letter quickly, without stopping to think.
ELA.K.F.3.2
Tell how letters are alike and different in name, shape, sound and the strokes used to write them, like b and d.
ELA.K.F.3.3
Quickly say the one sound that goes with each consonant letter, like b says /b/ and m says /m/.
ELA.K.F.3.4
Find the vowel in a printed syllable or word and say its sound while decoding, in closed syllables like bat, open ones like go, and with help silent-e ones like cake.
ELA.K.F.3.5
Blend letter sounds to read VC and CVC words like up and map, both on their own and inside a text.
ELA.K.F.3.6
Build new words by taking out, adding or changing the first, middle or last letter of a CVC word, like changing pig to pin.
ELA.K.F.3.7
Count the syllables in a word using the rule that each syllable has a vowel sound, like hearing two vowel sounds in rabbit.
ELA.K.F.3.8
Read and spell words with VC, CV and CVC patterns, the digraphs ch, sh, th and wh, and qu, like at, me, sun, ship and quit.
ELA.K.F.4.1
Read the common high-frequency words in kindergarten texts correctly and quickly, like the, and, is and see.
ELA.K.F.4.2
Read texts aloud correctly and with expression, like using an excited voice at an exclamation point.
ELA.K.F.4.3
Figure out words while reading by sounding out and blending, comparing to words already known, and checking the pictures, like reading hop after top.

Applications of Reading

14 standards
ELA.K.AOR.1.1
Name and describe the main characters, the setting and the events that move a story along.
ELA.K.AOR.1.2
Spot figurative language such as alliteration and sound words like buzz, plus describing words and rhymes in a text.
ELA.K.AOR.2.1
Retell a familiar story using its main parts, like the characters, the setting, the problem and the ending.
ELA.K.AOR.2.2
Retell a familiar informational text by naming its topic and the details that support it, like a book about frogs.
ELA.K.AOR.3.1
Name the author and illustrator of a story and explain that one writes the words and the other draws the pictures.
ELA.K.AOR.4.1
Name the author and illustrator of an informational book and explain what each one adds, like the facts or the drawings.
ELA.K.AOR.5.1
Recognize and describe the basic features of stories, plays and poems, like rhyme in a poem or characters speaking in a play.
ELA.K.AOR.5.2
Use titles, headings, subheadings, pictures and photos to guess what an informational text is about, then check the guess.
ELA.K.AOR.5.3
Find what the author thinks about a topic in an informational text, like an author who says dogs make great pets.
ELA.K.AOR.6.1
Retell a text aloud to understand it, naming the characters, setting and key events of a story or the topic and details of an informational text.
ELA.K.AOR.7.1
Work out what new and familiar words mean by asking and answering questions about them and using words picked up from talk and read-alouds.
ELA.K.AOR.8.1
Judge how well an author's words work by sorting words into groups like fruits and vegetables, pairing opposites, and explaining words for feelings or senses.
ELA.K.AOR.9.1
Use word parts to understand spoken words, like knowing the s at the end of dogs means more than one.
ELA.K.AOR.10.1
Describe how the pictures or photos in a text connect to the words, like a photo showing the animal a sentence names.

Research

1 standard
ELA.K.R.1.1
Ask and answer who, what, when, where, why and how questions about books, pictures and other sources to learn more.

Written and Oral Communications

9 standards
ELA.K.C.1.1
Draw, dictate and write to name a topic, share an opinion about it and give one reason, like fall is best because of the leaves.
ELA.K.C.2.1
Draw, dictate and write to tell about a topic and give details about it, like facts about a class pet.
ELA.K.C.3.1
Draw, dictate and write to tell about one event or a few linked events in the order they happened, like a trip to the park.
ELA.K.C.4.1
Write complete simple sentences, capitalizing the first word and I, naming end marks, using periods, and using nouns like cat and cats and action verbs.
ELA.K.C.5.1
With guidance from adults, plan, change and fix up writing, adding to their own ideas and the ideas of others to make it stronger.
ELA.K.C.6.1
Print all capital and lowercase letters neatly, with a good pencil grip, correct letter shapes and a steady pace, leaving space between letters, words and sentences.
ELA.K.C.7.1
Tell information aloud in the order it happened, using joining and time words like and, before and after.
ELA.K.C.8.1
Join guided talks with classmates and adults about kindergarten topics and books by greeting, taking turns, responding and thinking about others' ideas.
ELA.K.C.9.1
Ask and answer questions while talking with others about a topic, like asking a friend what they saw at the zoo.

The official South Carolina documents

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