Reading benchmarks · by age
What should a 5-year-old be reading?
Most 5-year-olds are still getting ready to read: learning the sound each letter makes, hearing rhymes and first sounds, and starting to blend sounds into short words like cat. A 5-year-old who is still getting ready is in the right stage for their age, and so is one who is already blending words. The skill to watch this year is blending.
Benchmarks for a 5-year-old
Each line says where it comes from. Children reach these on different timelines; treat them as a guide to what to practise next.
- Reading stage for this age
Ages 3–5 · getting ready to read
Getting ready to read is the stage the check below expects at 5. It lists every skill in it, with the stage before and one stage beyond, so you can see exactly which skill is next.
- School year
Usually kindergarten in the US
A child who is 5 at the start of the school year is usually in kindergarten (Year 1 in England and Wales). Birthdays and cut-off dates can move a child a year either way.
- Reading speed
No published figure at this age
Hasbrouck and Tindal's 2017 fluency norms have no kindergarten row and start in the middle of 1st grade, so there's no number to compare a 5-year-old's reading speed against. Letter sounds and blending matter more than speed now.
- Daily reading time
About 20 minutes read aloud to them, plus 10 minutes of their own reading
Our practical synthesis for at-home practice, not a clinical prescription.
Check your 5-year-old in 2 minutes
Age 5 is already picked. Tick only what you've seen your child do on their own, more than once, then see which stage they're in and the next skills to practise.
Tick what you've seen
Only tick a skill you've seen your child do on their own, more than once.
If they're below that line
If letter sounds are still patchy, start there: three or four sounds at a time, the sound and not the name (/m/, not "em"), mixed up, every day.
Once most sounds are in place, short-vowel words are the first words to blend. Start with the short a list, then work through the other vowels.
This is not a diagnosis
This is not a diagnosis or an assessment, and a reassuring result doesn't rule anything out. Children learn to read on different timelines. If you're worried about your child's reading, talk to your child's teacher. The figures on this page describe groups of children, not a line your child has to cross by a certain date.
Frequently asked questions
Should my 5-year-old be reading books on their own?
Not necessarily. At 5, most of the work is letter sounds, rhyme, first sounds and the first blending. Some 5-year-olds read short decodable books; many start that at 6. Both are normal.
How do I know my 5-year-old is ready to start blending?
When they know the sounds of most letters and can tell you the first sound in a spoken word ("sun" starts with /s/), try it: say /c/ /a/ /t/ slowly and ask them to push the sounds together into the word.
Do children this age read more in other countries?
In England, a child this age is in Year 1 and sits the Phonics Screening Check at the end of it: 40 words read aloud to a teacher, 20 of them made up, with an expected standard of 32 out of 40. The US has no national check like it, so it's an outside yardstick, not a US expectation.
Free: reading milestones by age: a parent checklist
The skills that usually come together at each stage from age 3 to 12, as a tick-list you can turn into a practice plan. One printable page.
We'll email you the reading milestones by age checklist, a few short reading tips over the next month, then at most one monthly roundup of new guides. Unsubscribe anytime.
Where the numbers come from
- Stages and skills: our reading-level-by-age check, built from the questions in our "Is my child behind?" quiz. These are our rules for a parent check, not published norms.
- School years: our school year and grade equivalents chart (age at the start of the school year).
- Hasbrouck, J. & Tindal, G. (2017). An Update to Compiled ORF Norms (Technical Report No. 1702). Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon. Table 4: Compiled ORF Norms 2017 (report p. 10).
- Daily minutes: our practical synthesis, for at-home practice, of the American Academy of Pediatrics' literacy promotion guidance (Pediatrics, 2014) and Anderson, Wilson & Fielding's reading-volume research (Reading Research Quarterly, 1988). Not a clinical prescription.