Before they can read independently, children must learn the relationship of letters to their sounds and be able to distinguish individual sounds, or phonemes, within words. Phonics skills help children sounds out new words (If I can read "pot", then I can read "hot" and "spot").

To read and write, children must understand how individual letter sounds blend together to make words. Experimenting with building words, such as changing mat to cat to rat, helps with reading and spelling.

Knowing the letters of the alphabet is one of the first steps toward learning to read and write. Introducing letters to young children helps them learn to recognize the different shapes and names - an early indicator for reading achievement.

There are more consonants sounds than there are consonants in the alphabet. A consonant digraph is a pair of consonants that stand for a single sound (ch, sh, th, wh).

Spelling begins with regular short vowel sounds (cap) and long vowel sounds (with silent e, cap becomes cape). Finally, children learn the rules and patterns of vowel pairs (ee), digraphs (ai in train), dipthongs (oi in boil) and r-controlled vowels (farm, bird).

Creating art is an exercise in learning how to see. With increased confidence in their skills, children discover that art is a vehicle for self-expression.

As early as 6 months, babies begin to understand the concept of numbers, noticing small groups of one, two or three things. As children develop number sense they learn to count by ones, skip count and count backwards, gaining the foundation for operations. Children who have good number sense find learning operations like addition and subtraction much easier.

To begin their study of math, children must distinguish numerals from letters and shapes and understand that numbers are symbols for amounts.

Once children know that numbers are symbols for objects (2 stands for two cars) they learn to count sets, or groups of objects, to find sums. Finally, sets of objects can be replaced by numerals and added together in equations.

Children begin to understand multiplication as repeated addition through models (such as adding three groups of two blocks). They begin to memorize multiplication tables, and finally, to multiply 2- and 3- digit numbers, using division to check the results.

The inverse of addition is subtraction - to take away objects and tell how many are left. Once children grasp subtraction, sets of objects can be replaced by numerals in equations.