The ultimate kindergarten reading skills curriculum is here! We used our knowledge and expertise to develop an excellent no prep curriculum. This foundational skills program is designed to be taught 30-40 minutes every day and starts out teaching the letters of the alphabet and progresses to reading and writing skills!!! This program satisfies ALL of the Common Core State Standards for Reading: Foundational Skills and many of the Language: Conventions of Standard English as well.
No Missing Pieces
We developed this curriculum to help kindergarten teachers have a rock solid alphabet and reading skills block. Our Alphabet Animals Reading Skills Curriculum is cohesive and has no missing pieces. Prior to creating this program, the one we used was missing A LOT, causing us to spend valuable time trying to fix it. By researching and creating OUR OWN, we solved this problem. Our Alphabet Animals Reading Skills program is complete. It’s all you will need for your literacy skills block.
Our Reading Skills Curriculum
During the first 26 days of the school year, we introduce each letter of the alphabet using our engaging Rainbow Writing pages. These are great for fine motor development as well as the perfect introduction to a more in depth analysis of the alphabet.
After introducing the alphabet using the Rainbow Writing pages, we spend a week working on each letter of the alphabet. We use the Alphabet Animals as a fun focus to teach foundational reading and writing skills. We delve deeply into the study of each letter. This lends itself to teaching beginning sounds, blending sounds, interactive writing, sight words, and more!
Reading Skills Curriculum Components
To learn more about any of the components, simply click on the picture.
Alphabet Animal Cards
These printable alphabet cards can be hung in your classroom as the alphabet line or an alphabet banner! There are also a lot of great abc letter games you can play with these cards, including matching uppercase to lowercase, beginning sounds to pictures, and so on.
ABC Letter Chart
We LOVE this adorable ABC Letter Chart! You can use this chart in so many ways; reading and writing workshops, small group and whole group instruction. Use it to teach letter-sound association.
Phonemic Awareness Activities
These fast, fun phonemic awareness activities should be taught at the beginning of your reading skills block. The alphabet activities in this packet go hand in hand with our Alphabet Animals Rainbow Writing lessons. Continue with the remaining activities to ensure your students' reading success.
Rainbow Writing
Over the first 26 days of school, we teach each letter of the alphabet in order. Using these Rainbow writing pages, you can teach letter sound, formation and identify different things that start with the letter. These pages are great for fine motor development as well as the perfect introduction to a more in depth analysis of the alphabet.
Alphabet Books
Using alphabet books for kindergarten is a great way to teach children alphabetic principle and phonemic awareness. These adorable, printable alphabet books do just that. They come with and without words so you can choose the one each child is ready for.
After our alphabet introduction, we spend a week working on each letter of the alphabet. We delve deeply into the study of each letter (ie. letter name, sound recognition, and letter formation). This allows for the teaching of beginning sounds, blending sounds, interactive writing, sight words, and more!
Based on research and experience, we recommend the following sequence to teach the letters: cmat rsip bfog hjul dwen kqvxyz. Research has shown that this order gives students a good foundation for reading. This sequence is designed to help students be able to put sounds together and start building words. However, you may teach the alphabet in whatever order works best for you and your students.
Alphabet Chants
These chants are used to introduce each new letter on the first day of the week. Every chant is fun, rhythmic and full of words that begin with the specific letter. Students love learning the chants and searching through them to find and underline the focus letter. To add excitement and anticipation, we recommend introducing each new letter using clues. This product comes with clear instructions and fun ideas on how to use these pages.
Handwriting
These adorable handwriting pages can be used to teach your students how to properly form the letter. Students also have fun searching for hidden letters inside the Alphabet Animal. The hidden letters are written in a variety of fonts so your students can get used to seeing the different variations. We taught handwriting on the second day of the week.
Beginning Sounds
After handwriting, we taught beginning sounds. The beginning sound pages teach onset and rime. These pages are great for students learning to discern beginning sounds. They are also designed for advanced students who are ready to sound out and phonetically spell words. The pictures are cute and fun for students to color.
Letter / Sight Word Books
The fourth day of the week is All About the Letter books! We use these books to teach beginning sounds, sight words, reading strategies, and writing! The books become more challenging as the weeks progress. This product includes instructions and ideas for differentiation.
Interactive Writing
Interactive writing is a wonderful teaching technique where the teacher and the students collaborate to compose and write texts. With Interactive Writing, your students get to create and write sentences about the Alphabet Animal of the week . Students love feeling successful when they write a sentence that everyone can read! This is done on the fifth day of the week.
The following pages are to be used when you feel your students are ready. Look at our scope and sequence for a suggested timeline. They can be added on to the back of one of the above worksheets. For example if handwriting is taking less time, you might add one of the new worksheets to the back of it. You can always skip a day or a week and spend that time teaching one of the following skills.
CVC Words
Students should be introduced to CVC words once they begin to learn the letters and the sounds the letters make. These worksheets help students practice putting letter sounds together to make CVC words. They are easily differentiated to meet the needs of your students.
Word Families
Word families are an important way to help children learn to read and write! These pages are a cute and fun way to teach your students how to read and write commonly used spelling patterns. The worksheets are also differentiated.
Long Vowels
Teaching vowels can be confusing for students because they have a short and long sound. Using these long vowel worksheets can help students learn the different long vowel patterns.
Digraphs
Teaching digraphs is important. These digraph worksheets will teach your students the ch, th and sh digraphs. These pages have been differentiated to meet your students' needs.
Reading Skills Curriculum Bundles
We have our curriculum bundled in two ways. Pick which one works best for you. The ESSENTIAL Bundle includes the basic components you need for the year. The COMPLETE Bundle includes all products in the Essential Bundle plus 6 other fantastic skills products that complement the Essential Bundle.
Essential Bundle:
Complete Bundle:
- Everything included in the Essential Bundle plus the following:
- Alphabet Books
- CVC Words
- Word Families
- Long Vowels
- CVC Elkonin Boxes
- Alphabet Slideshows
- Digraphs
Scope and Sequence
We created this scope and sequence to help you organize your skills block for the year. However, you can change it to meet the needs of your students.
So if you want a complete, yearlong, no prep, reading skills curriculum that covers the standards, includes strategies for differentiated instruction, and is fun and engaging for students, YOU NEED our Alphabet Animals Curriculum. We have created this easy to implement program to promote success in student learning. Our mission is to help kindergarten teachers everywhere! Please leave a comment below if you have any questions. We would love to help you out!
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2 Responses
I am a kinder teacher. What should I use for the curriculum kindergarten.
Hi Inlandi, The curriculum in this blog post is specifically for a skills block (learning about letters and sounds, short vowels, long vowels, putting the sounds together to form words, learning about sentences…). It does not cover all subjects or everything you need in kindergarten, but it is a fantastic place to start. We pair this with our reading curriculum.