Kindergarten is the year when children learn how to go to school -- first grade is when serious learning begins. Learning to read is by far the most important task for students to accomplish at this grade.

“Reading is my main focus,” says first grade teachers Karinna Navarrette. “In Kindergarten, they’re learning their sounds, their letters, how to decode words (turning written letters into spoken sounds), but now they’re learning how to blend sounds -- to read.”

Kids enter first grade at different reading levels, but it is critical that children are reading at grade level.. or above. If not -- they can quickly fall behind. Principal Roxanna Sanders says, “Day one -- more is expected from first graders. The pacing is faster.”

And becoming a skilled decoder does not necessarily translate into being a skilled reader. Students also need to understand what they’re reading. “You just need to read to your child. You need to talk the dialogue, “ says Navarrette, “to help them understand, to relate, to make the connections of school, of home, of the world.

All evidence points toward parental involvement as one of the most important factors in a child’s academic life.