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Kindergarten · English Language Arts · Unit 7 of 16

Book Detectives

Letters, words and books

What your child practices

How print works: telling letters, numbers, words and sentences apart, reading left to right and top to bottom, counting words, and what authors and illustrators do.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: KRF1; KR6 · how print and books are organized, and what authors and illustrators do

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. A letter is one mark, like N.
  2. A word is a group of letters. Spaces go between words.
  3. We read a book from the front, top to bottom, left to right.

Example: How many words are in “I see a cat”? Count the words: I, see, a, cat. Four words. Answer: 4

Book Detectives in New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 7 of 16 in Kindergarten English Language Arts, after Story Order and before Picture Clues.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which word comes last?

    I see a cat.

    • I
    • a
    • cat

  2. Question 2

    In English, which way do we read?

    • ⬅️Right to left
    • ⬆️Bottom to top
    • ➡️Left to right

  3. Question 3

    How many words are in this sentence?

    Look at the moon.

    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

  4. Question 4

    Which one is a number?

    • 6
    • F
    • dog

  5. Question 5

    Which one is a word?

    • mom
    • 4
    • F

  6. Question 6

    What goes between two words?

    • A picture
    • A space
    • A number

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