Gr TK Report Card Family Guide

Introduction

Overview 

Standards-based knowledge and skills will remain the central pillars of every student’s learning, creating a deep foundation that enables further inquiry and exploration in a variety of fields and areas of interest. The SFUSD Report Cards are intended to communicate progress towards mastery of these skills and standards. SFUSD Transitional Kindergarten standards build toward the Kindergarten standards. SFUSD uses the California Preschool Learning Foundations and the research-based based measures in the Desired Results Developmental Profile as references for end-of-year Kindergarten readiness expectations.

All SFUSD students in grades TK-5 receive marks that show progress toward end-of-year expectations. Mastery of end-of-year expectations is indicated with a score of 3 or higher. Instead of letter grades, students receive marks that describe proficiency levels. All students receive proficiency level indicators for the standards at their grade level. 

Conferencing with your Child’s Teacher

Parent/Guardian/Teacher Conferences are an important opportunity to discuss your child’s progress. Here are some tips and suggestions.

Before the conference…

  • Make sure you have a scheduled conference time. If you need to cancel the scheduled time, contact the teacher to schedule a different time.
  • Review your child’s work.
  • Talk with your child about his or her progress in school.
  • Think about your child’s strengths and challenges beforehand. 
  • Make a list of questions about your child’s development and ways you and the teacher can help your child with some of his or her challenges. Examples: Is my child at the level where he/she should be at this point of the school year? In what areas is my child excelling? How is their attendance? What can I do to help my child with upcoming work?
  • Think about ways you would like to be involved in your child’s learning, so you can discuss them with the teacher.

At the conference…

  • Be prepared for a two-way conversation to learn about your child’s social and emotional and academic progress at school. This is also an opportunity for the teacher to learn about what your child is like at home. When you tell the teacher about your child’s skills, interests, needs and dreams, the teacher can help your child more.
  • Ask to see data about your child’s attendance and progress at school.
  • Make a goal and a plan with your child's teacher to ensure your child's success.
  • Write down the things you and the teacher will do to support your child. 
  • Schedule another time to talk if you need to continue the conversation past the allotted amount of time. 
  • Ask your child's teacher how best to communicate with them.

After the conference…

  • Talk with your child about what you learned.
  • Follow up with the teacher about your child’s development and the plan that was created during the conference.

 

Social-Emotional Development

How Are Social-Emotional Skills Developed? 

Social-emotional development is facilitated by strong, supportive and sustained relationships with adults and peers. Each child has their own unique strengths and develops social emotional skills over time with support from their family, peers, teacher, and community. 

Standards

What Can Families Do To Support Children?

Explores environment to learn about people, things, and events

  • Attend community events and explore new, and unfamiliar environments together such as children’s museums, art and cultural museums, the academy of sciences, different parks, etc.
  • Provide question prompts for your child and encourage them to try them out in new environments such as, “Can I have a turn?” “What are you working on over here?” “How does this work?”

Develops strategies in regulating feelings  

  • Do five finger breathing, use feeling cards to learn how to identify feelings, use bubbles to breath, create a corner in the home where a child can go to take some time to be by themselves

Persists in mastering new and challenging activities

  • Give children positive feedback by praising the problem-solving process and encouraging them to keep trying. 
  • Let your child keep trying a puzzle without solving it for them. Give them gentle guidance when frustration sets in. Give options like “what if we rotated the puzzle piece?”

Able to share space and materials with others

  • Play board games (candy land), games with balls (catch, bouncing or rolling the ball to each other) or card games (go fish or matching card games) to practice taking turns and sharing materials. 

Describes characteristics of self 

  • Daily affirmations can help build your child’s sense of self and give them the language to link to their feelings, motivations, self-awareness
  • Use Positive Descriptive Acknowledgements (PDA’s) to talk about  their behavior throughout the day. Examples: “You are so responsible when you clean up your toys.” “It is friendly of you to share your toys.” 

Communicates ideas about why one has a feeling

  • When reading a book, ask your child why the character is doing what they are doing. Ask how your child would feel if they were in the same position as the character in the book. 

Engages in cooperative play with others

  • Play games that requires taking turns ( board games, card games)

Additional Resources for Families

Toolkits for parents for each age level can be found in English and Spanish at: parenttoolkit.com

Social-Emotional Learning information can be found at: casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning and https://allaboutyoungchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/english-social-emotional-48-60.pdf 

Language and Literacy Development

Children will begin to develop many aspects of early literacy (reading, writing, speaking and listening) in Transitional Kindergarten. Students will develop language and literacy through listening, talking, exploring books and print, and drawing.   

Standards 

What Can Families Do To Support Children? 

Shows understanding of a variety of phrases and sentences 

  • Most children can understand more than they can say; you can use sentences that are a bit longer.
  • Build your child’s vocabulary by having a designated time for reading together daily.  
  • If your child is using one, two, or three word  phrases, you can expand what is said by using their word(s) in a sentence and adding to it. For example, if they point to a bird in a tree and say “bird”, you can say, “That bird is in the tree!”

Carries out familiar multi-step tasks

  • Practice giving children three unrelated directions at home.  You could say,  “Take off your shoes, wash your hands, sit on the couch.”

Produces sentences with nouns and verbs

  • Use a variety of words when you speak to your child; this will help them learn new words. 
  • Sing, dance, and play together while talking about what is happening (“we are jumping, we are moving our bodies!”)

Participates in read alouds, songs, and rhyming games

  • Sing and read to your child daily.

Understands details of texts read aloud

  • Read together and  engage your child in a story by having them respond to questions, repeat phrases and predict what is going to happen next. 

Tracks print left to right and page to page in a book

  • Read with your child every day. Use your finger to track along the print and encourage them to do it as well. 

Demonstrates awareness of letters, words, and syllables

  • Write letters or make cards for friends and family. Encourage your child to include a phrase like, “Happy Birthday!” “Get well soon!” or “Thank you!” and sign their work. 

Identifies 10 or more letters

  • Encourage them to practice writing their full name (first and last) regularly, as well as the names of family members and even pets! 

Writes first name 

  • In the grocery store, make a game of matching the letters of their name to items.
  • Provide different surfaces in which your child can practice writing their name (sand, paint, marker/crayon on paper, chalk.)

Additional Resources for Families

California Prekindergarten Curriculum Frameworks: cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/cf/documents/elaeldfwchapter3.pdf

California Common Core State Standards: cde.ca.gov/re/cc

Information for Families on Children’s Language and Literacy Development: https://allaboutyoungchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/english-language-literacy-48-60.pdf 

English Language Development

This section of the report card is only completed for children who are English Language Learners (ELs). TK teachers recognize the value of diversity and show respect for each child’s home culture and language by incorporating familiar words, objects and images into program and curricular design. At the same time, they continually encourage the development of English language and literacy skills. 

How are English Language skills developed?  

Children develop the skills for reading and writing through both talking and listening. Speaking in your first language will help your child with your home language and other languages as well. Children should also have opportunities to interact with English-speaking children, this could take place at the public library or parks and recreation centers.   

Standards 

What Can Families Do To Support Children?

Shows understanding of multiple words, phrases and concepts in English

  • Explain and sometimes act out the meanings of important words in a story that your child may not know. Point to details of the illustrations that will help them understand the meaning of complex sentences and new words. 

Communicates in English using sentences

  • Plan playdates with your child’s bilingual or English-speaking peers and friends 

Uses a variety of words and phrases in English

  • Read out loud to them or play audio versions of texts and provide a similar text in the student's first language

  • Have two-way conversations with your child; even if the parent isn’t confident in English, they can practice and learn together
  • Sing songs in English; ask the teacher for the common songs they sing in the classroom

Identifies 10 or more letters in English

  • Expose them to and sing a variety of alphabet songs in English; videos are a great resource for this 

  • Sing the traditional ABC song that they learn at school along with a visual of the letters

 

Additional Resources for Families

California Common Core State Standards: cde.ca.gov/re/cc

Math and Science

Math standards taught in Transitional Kindergarten are carefully aligned with Kindergarten and Pre-K math standards. Children learn math throughout the day in small groups, individually and together as a whole class. Children practice math together socially, using real concrete objects to count and compare. Teachers support math knowledge by modeling and asking questions, by offering many opportunities to talk about math ideas, and by asking children to show their thinking in a variety of ways.

Standards 

What Can Families Do To Support Children?

Sorts objects into two or more groups by size and by color

  • Have children help with laundry by matching socks. 
  • Sort crayons/colored pencils by color

Counts objects 1-10

  • Count steps/cars/ trees on the way to school

Uses counting to add or subtract one or two objects

  • Board games are a great way to practice this as you typically add the dots from the dice and advance your piece on the board the corresponding number of spaces
  • At meal or snack times, encourage your child to help set the table or distribute food items according to the number of expected guests

Identifies differences in size, length, weight of two or more objects

  • Give kids options of different fruits and talk about the differences (Ie: apple, banana)

Creates repeating patterns with 2 or more elements

  • This can be practiced with a variety of toys or food items (like fruits or vegetables); especially when you have multiple of the same item. For example: racecar, racecar, dinosaur, racecar, racecar, dinosaur; or apple, banana, orange, apple, banana, orange, etc. 

Identifies several shapes 

 

  • When walking to school, identify the different shapes you see. (e.g., stop signs, yield signs, window signs, houses, etc…)
  • Show your child a shape and have them create that shape with playdoh 
  • Build different structures with blocks and identify the shape of each piece.
  • Identify shapes in your home (the table is round, the door is a rectangle, the package is square, the egg is an oval)

Additional Resources for Families

California Mathematics Resources for Parents and Guardians: cde.ca.gov/re/cc/mathinfoparents.asp

California Common Core State Standards: cde.ca.gov/re/cc 

Information for Families on Children’s Development of Number Sense: https://allaboutyoungchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/english-number-sense-48-60.pdf 

Physical Development and Health

Health Education is part of the required instructional program at all grade levels in SFUSD schools. The goals of health education are to supplement and reinforce discussions about health in the home and community and to teach knowledge and skills necessary for children to make health-promoting decisions. Students in transitional kindergarten will be evaluated on Personal and Community Health and Growth and Development.

Health Standards

What Can Families Do to Support Children?

Changes movement in relation to people or objects

  • Encourage the use of walking feet and safe bodies indoors. Use phrases such as, “We can run outside, but inside you need to use walking feet.” 
  • Remind your child of the expectations related to an environment before entering. For example, “Remember, when we go into the classroom we use inside voices and walking feet. When you play outside you can run, climb, and use an outside voice.”

Writes with a pencil or crayon using pincer hand position

  • Provide opportunities to develop their fine motor skills such as cooking together, playdough, beading/lacing, etc.
  • Play games such as Operation or pretend play using a dentist or doctor’s kit that contains age  appropriate tweezers.
  • Write letters or make cards for friends and family. Encourage your child to include a phrase like, “Happy Birthday!” “Get well soon!” or “Thank you!” and sign their work.  

Uses two or more sequential movements to move objects

  • Pushing pedals to move a bike (one foot must follow the other), scooter, or pedal car.
  • Lifting and throwing balls into hoops or to destroy block towers; bowling.
  • Crawling under a blanket fort and climbing over a pillow mountain.

Moves objects using both hands doing different movements

  • Have your child spray and wipe the table. 
  • Provide opportunities for your child to practice self-help skills such as dressing themselves; putting on their own socks and shoes, buttoning their coats, etc. 

Additional Resources for Families

Eat Fresh

Healthy, tasty recipes on a budget

eatfresh.org 

Positive Parenting Tips

Links on child development, safety, and health at each stage of life

bit.ly/posparentingtips

Physical Development

Information for Families on Children’s Physical Development 

https://allaboutyoungchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/english-physical-development-48-60.pdf 

This page was last updated on September 10, 2024