First Grade Learning Goals

These goals are suggestions based on state standards. As always, each child learns differently and at a different pace, this is to act as a guide for subjects and also help with the order of presenting info to your learner. If your child needs a refresh or is missing some concepts, please refer to our Kindergarten Learning Goals post to review.

Below are some of the skills and concepts that a first grade student will typically learn:

Become an independent reader, improve their phonics, phonemic awareness, and comprehension
Grammar skills including capitalization and punctuation
Handwriting skills, writing their name as well as simple words and sentences
Math skills such as adding and subtracting single digit or small numbers, greater than and less than concepts, identifying patterns and shapes
How to make scientific observations and record these in writing, pictures and/or graphs.
Symbols that represent the U.S.
Important figures and events in U.S. history
The difference between living and nonliving things
The importance of the sun in relation to Earth and living things

Math Objectives for 1st Grade

An effective first grade curriculum will build on the skills learned in kindergarten and further students’ knowledge and mastery in topics like number sense, fractions, operations, money, patterns, and more.

Count to 100; county by 5s and 10s to 100; count by 2s to 40
Represent numbers on a number line
Add and subtract 2-digit numbers
Write the date; tell time; read a calendar
Count and create coin combinations; add and subtract money
Identify, sort and classify 2-dimensional shapes
Understanding the value of money

Reading Goals/Objectives for 1st Grade

Reading is a big part of first grade. As your child begins to broaden their reading skills, you’ll notice that they’ll begin to read words everywhere they go and relish in their newly developed skill. It’s important that you read to your child, and vice versa, on a daily basis to help them develop their literacy skills even further. A comprehensive and effective first grade language arts curriculum will help your child accomplish the following goals and objectives:

Increase vocabulary as they blend consonant sounds, vowel and consonant digraphs, and more.
Read simple stories fluently and independently.
Retell the main idea of a story and answer questions about the text.
Identify parts of a story or book.
Know the names and sounds of all the consonants and vowels.
Understand phonics concepts such as consonant combinations.
Develop an understanding of composition.

Writing Goals/Objectives for 1st Grade

In first grade, students begin to learn how to organize their thoughts in order to write sentences that are coherent, while also taking into account a number of factors such as those listed below. They’ll learn that paragraphs should have a beginning, middle and end. And although spelling skills may not be fully mastered, using ‘invented’ spelling means that students are understanding letter sounds and spelling things as they hear them when they sound them out.

Below are a few objectives that first graders should be able to master.

Write from top to bottom, left to right while using spacing between words.
Correctly write 3- 4-letter words and longer words phonetically.
Write simple sentences and short stories or paragraphs in chronological order.

Grammar Goals/Objectives for 1st Grade

Grammar and writing go hand in hand. Without proper grammar skills, students won’t be able to form complete, coherent sentences. In addition to the objectives listed below, using the proper subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, and correct punctuation are just some of the goals first graders should work toward.

Use correct capitalization and punctuation.
Understand and identify the parts of speech and types of sentences.
Identify compound words and distinguish between proper and possessive nouns.

Science Objectives for 1st Grade

A first grade science curriculum should reteach and expand on what students learned in kindergarten, teach more advanced concepts on those topics, and introduce new material.

An effective first grade science curriculum will also give students the opportunity to make real life connections with what they are studying.

Below is a general overview of the science objectives for first grade.

Distinguish between the states of matter and how they can change
Ask scientific questions, observe using their senses, create hypothesis, draw conclusions, share data
Distinguish between living and nonliving things
Understand the water cycle, weather patterns, and seasons
Identify the different parts and functions of plants
Classify animals and the different habitats they live in