What reading skills and knowledge do children gain across kindergarten and 1st grade?

Children made considerable gains in reading during their first 2 years of school (Denton and West 2002). Across the kindergarten year, they learned the alphabet and letter-sound relationships at the beginning and end of words. By the end of kindergarten, nearly all of the children knew their letters, 70 percent understood letter-sound relationships at the beginning of words, and about one-half understood letter-sound relationships at the end of words (figure 1). When the children began 1st grade, about one-quarter could read words that are often used (sight words), and about 1-in-10 could read and understand words in context. By the end of the 1st grade, about three-quarters could read these often-used words, and 4-in-10 could read and understand words in context (figure 1).