South Dakota ELA K.RF.2.a

ELAKindergartenReading Foundational Skills

The Standard

Blend and segment at the word level.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students hear two spoken words, such as rain and bow, and say the word they make together. They also hear a word like toothbrush and say its two word parts.
What Mastery Looks Like: Given sun and flower, a student says sunflower without seeing print. Given playground, they say play and ground in the right order.
Common Misconceptions: Some children split butterfly into but, ter, and fly instead of butter and fly. Others reverse the parts and say flower sun when asked to split sunflower.
How to Assess It: Say, "I will say two words: snow, man. What word do they make? Now split raincoat into its two words." Listen for snowman and rain, coat.

Lesson moves

Give children picture cards for sun and flower; have them join the cards, say sunflower, then pull them apart and name each word.
Ask, "What two words make up playground, and which word comes first?"
Play a call-and-response game: say tooth and brush for children to answer toothbrush, then say raincoat for them to answer rain and coat.
Hold up a lunchbox and point to a bookshelf; have children split each name into its two spoken words.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to K.RF.2.a, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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