What Your First Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good First-Grade Education

Core Knowledge

by E.D. Hirsch Jr.

Give your child a smart start with
What Your First Grader Needs to Know
 
What will your child be expected to learn in the first grade? How can you help him or her at home? How can teachers foster active, successful learning in the classroom? This book answers these all-important questions and more, offering the specific shared knowledge that hundreds of parents and teachers across the nation have agreed upon for American first graders. Featuring a new Introduction, filled with opportunities for reading aloud and fostering discussion, this first-grade volume of the acclaimed Core Knowledge Series presents the sort of knowledge and skills that should be at the core of a challenging first-grade education. Inside you’ll discover
 
• Favorite poems —old and new, such as “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” and “Thirty Days Hath September”
• Beloved stories —from many times and lands, including a selection of Aesop’s fables, “Hansel and Gretel,” “All Stories Are Anansi’s,” “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” and much more
• Familiar sayings and phrases —such as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “Practice makes perfect”
• World and American history and geography —take a trip down the Nile with King Tut and learn about the early days of our country, including the story of Jamestown, the Pilgrims, and the American Revolution
• Visual arts —fun activities plus full-color reproductions of masterworks by Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Georgia O’Keeffe, and others
• Music —engaging introductions to great composers and music, including classical music, opera, and jazz, as well as a selection of favorite children’s songs
• Math —a variety of activities to help your child learn to count, add and subtract, solve problems, recognize geometrical shapes and patterns, and learn about telling time
• Science —interesting discussions of living things and their habitats, the human body, the states of matter,  electricity, our solar system, and what’s inside the earth, plus stories of famous scientists such as Thomas Edison and Louis Pasteur

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Parenting, Reference, Teaching, Childrens, School

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

E. D. Hirsch, Jr. is the founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several acclaimed books on education in which he has persisted as a voice of reason making the case for equality of educational opportunity.

A highly regarded literary critic and professor of English earlier in his career, Dr. Hirsch recalls being “shocked into education reform” while doing research on written composition at a pair of colleges in Virginia. During these studies he observed that a student’s ability to comprehend a passage was determined in part by the relative readability of the text, but even more by the student’s background knowledge.

This research led Dr. Hirsch to develop his concept of cultural literacy—the idea that reading comprehension requires not just formal decoding skills but also wide-ranging background knowledge. In 1986 he founded the Core Knowledge Foundation. A year later he published Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, which remained at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for more than six months. His subsequent books include The Schools We Need, The Knowledge Deficit, The Making of Americans, and most recently, How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation.

In How to Educate a Citizen (September, 2020), E.D. Hirsch continues the conversation he began thirty years ago with his classic bestseller Cultural Literacy, urging America’s public schools, particularly in Preschool – Grade 8, to educate our children using common, coherent and sequenced curricula to help heal and preserve the nation.

Reviews

[Vannessa Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know is just what a parent needs to help their 1st Grader navigate rhyming, punctuation, sayings and phrases, geography, history, continents, civilization, fine arts, music, math, natural sciences, life sciences, physical sciences, and much more on their level. What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know transitions well from one subject to the next.

I recommend What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know to parents and educators who are invested into the education of children.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of books were recommended in a book I was reading about Homeschooling. It's been a great resource for me getting my 1st ready for 1st grade. Interesting how much of it is NOT taught in public schools.

[Marwa Elhabashy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good resource for those who teach kids, homeschool, or design educational courses for kids.
I was looking for these books for a long time- I'm in Egypt and it was hard to buy from amazon :(. And yesterday, it was such a blessing gift from a great homeschooling mom, whom I'm very grateful and thankful to.
I've almost read it in one night to take a review of the headline and topics, and going to study it once more.

[Becky]

should have bought the physical book vs. downloading it to the iPad. It has tons of activities for parents to teach kids on various subjects. I really like the content and just ordered the preschool, kindergarten, and first grade books. I plan to go over the preschool and kinder ones with Lane (or use the Kinder to review with Kai) and start the 1st grade one with Kai and use it through the school year to supplement....especially in the Social Studies and Science areas where she did not get much, if any at all last year!

[Lisa Okeefe · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I agree with the "core knowledge" concept, the retellings in this particular anthology are a lot less sophisticated than ones included in many others my kids enjoy. It could be useful as a start to finding resources to prepare a child to enter formal schooling, but there are other options that are better.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter really likes looking through this to get informed on topics that they don't have time to teach in class. Seems like they concentrate so much on writing and reading and math, that they are missing a good chuck of history and good literature.

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the information presented head and the added reading and teaching tools to help your children. My only critique is the religion portion. It only includes Muslim, Christianity, and Judaism. I chose to skip the portion entirely due to the exclusion of a lot of stolen culture due to Christianity.

[Sandie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My son is actually in 3rd grade, but I read him all the stories and review the information in the book with him. He has learning disabilities and it is good to keep the fundamentals fresh. I like how all the subjects are here for a quick overview.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative with lots of fun stories and poems. However, I wish there were more ideas for physical activities, art projects, and science experiments I can do with my kid. I'm looking forward to reading some of the stories to my child

[Christabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this just for the literature section, which we loved! I like the idea of having a basis for cultural knowledge, but I by no means feel tied to the exact information in the exact order it was presented. That said it is a good reference book and we liked it.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books takes a number of overwhelming possibilities and parses them down to a comprehensive guide to the essentials. The content is manageable for a single school year and teaching beyond the content is likely by virtue of working teaching into day to day activities.

[Jenny T · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice, thick book full of ideas and simple but useful activities for a variety of age groups. I read it cover to cover just for myself! I'd definitely use this material with future students, both in groups or individually. All the major subjects are covered, with classic information about a good variety of topics. Highly recommended.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book in the "Core Knowledge" series - does what it says on the tin - compiles what your 1st grader needs to know!

[Mary Louise Sanchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author proposes that children need background knowledge in many subject areas and has examples for caregivers

[Andrew Obrigewitsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this to my 10 year old son. We all leaned something. I’d say this is more like a 3rd grade level, unless your child is exceptionally smart. We will be doing the next one.

[Matthew Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gave me what I needed, which was a list of all the things. Good enough for me.

[Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid, aggressive set of age appropriate knowledge. Probably best to ensure there are few gaps in your child's education.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book at our local library when I was searching for books about homeschooling. I think I'll probably be adding it to our family's permanent collection, whether I choose to homeschool my children or not.

This book provides parents and educators with the basics that every first-grader should finish their school year knowing. Based on a "Core Knowledge System" of learning, it's filled with nursery rhymes for early memorization skills, basic grammatical skills they should know, basic geography, history, and science lessons, and which mathematical skills they should master before moving onto second grade.

This is by no means a complete curriculum; in its pages the authors state that this is to be used as a supplementation to a public or private school education, or to use as a basis for homeschoolers who are creating their own curricula.

I appreciated that the author has written the content in language that is both understandable for children at this level, but which will also challenge them to think beyond what is written on the pages. In the preface that author states that it is his intention that parents/educators will use this books as a jumping off point to explore its themes on a deeper level, and while this book could never provide an entire year's worth of learning on its own, it is a highly helpful addition for any parents that want to be involved in their children's education and make sure that all gaps are being filled between grade levels.

[Allyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's so hard thinking back to my own first grade experience; mostly what I remember are looking up 'purse' to try to spell 'person,' a writing assignment in which I detailed the adventure of my school bus breaking down, and Mrs. Celestine putting me in the 'A' reading group with a girl who would later become Valedictorian of Baton Rouge High. I also remember how manipulatives that looked like carrot sticks helped me learn about numbers.

This book has some information that I thought at first would be too elementary for my son, and other information that I thought would be too difficult. But he is grasping everything pretty well, and the book has given me a good framework upon which to base my homeschooling. One thing I really enjoyed was the old calendar rhyme, "Thirty days hath September...." I never knew it had a couplet in it about Leap Year:

Thirty days hath September
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
But February has twenty-eight alone.
Except in leap year, that's the time
When February's days are twenty-nine.

I will continue to use this book until I feel we've finished with first grade.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. Picked it up at the library and ordered a copy (on ebay, very reasonably). It's a great reader of fairy tales, poems, and more. From the selections in here I have been getting the full books from the library, but I love how there are classic tales (like Aesop's fables) here in their entirety, so my son has just enjoyed reading directly from here. There are sections on history, art, music, science, and math, and probably more. I didn't look through the math because we do our own thing, but I love having a book that has interesting readings in different subjects. I think he'll enjoy the history and science too when we get there. Basically, I love modern children's books; they are clever and funny, but we had never read things like Aesop's fables and The Frog Prince and Puss in Boots till picking up this book, and they are really foundational for understanding some of the sayings you hear in life ("sour grapes", "wolf in sheep's clothing", "crying wolf", and the fractured fairy tales that are popular now). Homeschoolers may find they already have all this stuff covered but for us it was a nice addition to our library.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went throught this book with my son this summer and was very impressed with it, overall. Some of the sections were good reveiws even for me, but the material is presented in a way that is within the grasp of a first grader. I like how well-rounded the book is, covering everything from Language, Math, and Science, to History, Art and Music. I especially appreciated the Math section whih lets you know exactly what Math skills a first grader should be comfortable with by the end of the school year.
I am currently working through the preschool book with my daughter, but it is much more basic than this one. I am planning on buying the second grade book from this series so that I can make sure that my son is on target throughout the school year.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a mom with an education degree, I have found this book is a great way to supplement my child's education. We read it at bedtime and it is set up perfectly for a quick read. The book is separated into different areas of curriculum (math, science, music, geography, etc.). There are also activities you can do with your child. I don't have time during the school year for them but they are great activities to do during the summer when we all need something different to do. By reading it only at bedtime it does take all school year to get through the book

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the entire series to prep for an El Ed licensing test. Since I have no education background, this has been helpful. I'm a big fan of Core Knowledge curriculum as far as I've read about it and seen it at work at our school, so it's fun to see what my kids have and will be studying the next few years.

Update: great info and literature to review with kids during the summer. The book (esp the geography/history sections) is written at a child's level so they can understand it easily - you could read straight from the book to them and they'd find it interesting.

[Ruth Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased the kindle edition of this book to compare the old edition to this newly revised edition. Though the content covered is almost identical, I like that the core knowledge curriculum has been reframed for a time in education when a national core has been adopted by almost 100% of the states. It is clear that Hirsch was "ahead of the curve", not clinging to the past when he delineated a core curriculum that would benefit all children.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title for me was very off-putting. However I had heard about this on a news program and despite the title I was happy to find that this is a excellent anthology of short read-a-louds for kids. I will be enjoying the whole series. While the material would not be difficult for kids to read on their own the book is not formatted that way. It is not sized small enough for kids to handle comfortably and has so much material that it works best to read with your children.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neat book to help you see what skills a first grader could have. Plus it has most of the information that you need contained in the book. It's a really great series and I buy one for each year that I teach. Helps me to ensure that we are at least meeting standards for the year although most of the time we are surpassing them completely.

[Jamie Hatfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really helpful ideas for a core knowledge my kids should have in the early grades! And it's not just ideas, but actual components of a good education that I can teach my children straight from the book. I have found holes in my son's education and have been able to fill in the chinks as we progress toward second grade.

[Melanie Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this series of books! I use them for our summer "school" sessions at home. They are great preparation for the school year ahead. I recommend them whenever I can, and I'm willing to loan them. :)

[Beyond the Pages with Eva K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent resource to include in home programming. No matter what the student learning situation is, this would be an ideal supplement. I loved the variety and reach of the content. Hirsch made many wonderful points that definitely resonated with me.

[Suzanne hanks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful in teaching my children. Very concise. Another E. D. Hirsch classic!