Kindergarten · Reading Forest
Before a child can read, the work is all in the ear: hearing that sun and sock start the same, that cat and hat end the same. Daily Academy's kindergarten reading is written to be listened to, so the questions test what a child can hear rather than what they can already decode.
46 activities in this subject · free to use · no card to start
Canadian provinces write their curricula separately and word them differently, but the kindergarten expectations below are common across all of them. Daily Academy is skills-based rather than built to any one province’s document — see how it maps to your province.
Asked what rhymes with star, a child will often pick stop — it starts the same. Rhyme is always about the end of a word, and separating the two is one of the strongest early predictors of later reading.
First sounds come months before last sounds. A child who can tell you fish starts with fff and cannot tell you dog ends with guh is entirely normal, and the last sound is the one that eventually makes spelling possible.
A favourite book said word-perfect while looking at the wrong page is memory, not reading. It is a good sign and it is not decoding — pointing at the words while you read is what starts joining the two.
Straight from the library, at the difficulty they are served at. Every question carries an explanation that appears after answering, whether the answer was right or wrong.
Phonics
Which word starts with the same sound as sun?
Why: Sun and sock both start with the sss sound. Listening to the first sound is the beginning of reading.
Sight Words
Look at this word: the
What word is it?
Why: The. It is the most common word in English, so knowing it on sight saves work in every single sentence.
Reading Fluency
When you read a line of words, which way do your eyes go?
Why: Left to right, then back to the start of the next line. Knowing this is what lets a child follow a page at all.
Literal Comprehension
What was Bo looking for?
Why: A shoe. He had one and needed the other.
Mastery is estimated per skill, never per subject, so strength in one can never average away a gap in another. Each page below carries a question you can ask tonight to check it yourself.
Most Canadian curricula expect a child leaving kindergarten to hear and produce rhyme, identify the first sound in a spoken word, know most letter names and many letter sounds, recognise a few common words on sight, and answer questions about a story read to them.
No, and there is no evidence that starting earlier produces better readers later. What matters at this age is sound awareness — rhyme, first sounds, syllables — and being read to often. Those are what decoding is later built on.
They are meant to be heard. Tapping Listen reads the question and every option aloud, with the letter shown on each button, and the phonics questions ask about sounds rather than spellings so that nothing depends on seeing the word.
Twenty minutes, five stops, and every question pitched at your child rather than at their year group. The daily mission is free and stays free.