The SOLs can be pretty wordy and obtuse, especially in the area of reading when language such as phoneme start appearing. What do they mean? I'm here to answer that question. The reading strand (strand means subject) starts at 1.5
- 1.5 The student will apply knowledge of how print is organized and read.
- This standard measures whether your child reads left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. It also measures whether your student says the words that are on the page, and is able to identify letters, words, and punctuation (the most important being the period) in a sentence.
- 1.6 The student will apply phonetic principles to read and spell.
- This standard measures whether your child can (depending on whether the standard is 1.6a, 1.6b, etc.) figure out how to read single (ex: cat) and multiple syllable words (ex: running). The standard also measures whether your child can identify the sounds blends (two letters together, ex: "tw" or "bl") and digraphs (two letters together that make a new sound, ex: "sh" or "th"). Finally, the standard measures whether your child can read their sight words (a list is found here).
- 1.7 The student will use semantic clues and syntax to expand vocabulary when reading.
- In this standard, "semantic" means the meaning of a word in a sentence (ex: In the sentences "The fly is buzzing." and "The bird can fly." the word "fly" has different meanings. This is a skill your child will need to master.). The word "syntax" means the rules of grammar (ex: Your child would have to know "The boy looks for the dog." is a correctly formed sentence and that "The boy look four the dog" is not.) This standard also measures whether the student understands that a sentence is a complete thought/idea. The standard measures if and how consistently a student rereads to self-correct any mistakes when reading.
- 1.8 The student will use semantic clues and syntax to expand vocabulary when reading.
- This standard measures whether a student can solve unknown words using clues found in the book they are reading. The clues can be anything from others, the rest of the sentence, pictures within the book, or even listening to the book being read aloud.
- 1.9 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety of fictional texts.
- This standard measures if your child can logically predict what might happen in a text, identify characters in a book, make connections (realize something that the book reminds them of in their personal life, in another book, or something in the world), use pictures to help figure out what is happening in the story, and to retell the story in a logical sequence of beginning, middle, and end.
- 1.10 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety of nonfiction texts.
- In addition to doing the same thing as the previous standard, students also have to be able to identify text features (captions, table of contents, glossary, index, etc) and identify the main idea of the story.
- 1.11 The student will use simple reference materials.
- This standard covers whether the student understands how to sort words in alphabetical order and use a dictionary to find unknown words.