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Common Core ELA1st GradeReading: Informational

RI.1.6: Tell Facts From Pictures Apart From Facts in Words

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.6 · Cluster: Craft and Structure.

All 41 1st Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 1, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.1.6 Means in Plain English

First graders sort what they learned from a nonfiction page into two piles: facts the picture showed and facts the words told. On a flamingo page, the photo shows pink feathers and a bird standing on one leg, while only the words say flamingos eat tiny shrimp.

In kindergarten (RI.K.6) children learned that the author writes the words and the illustrator makes the pictures. Now they split the facts the same way. In 2nd grade (RI.2.6) the question shifts to why the author wrote the text at all.

RI.1.6 I Can Statements

  • I can tell what I learned from a picture.
  • I can tell what I learned from the words.
  • I can say if a fact came from the picture or the words.

RI.1.6 Worked Example

A four-line flamingo page with its photo described in place, a question that asks where each fact came from, and two answers.

Read the Story
Photo: a flock of bright pink birds in shallow water. Most of them stand on one thin leg.Flamingos live near salty lakes and muddy shores.A flamingo dips its head upside down into the water and scoops up mud.Its beak works like a strainer. The water and mud flow out, and tiny shrimp stay in for dinner.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: What did you learn from the photo? What did you learn from the words?
Not Yet“Flamingos are pink and eat shrimp and stand on one leg.”All three facts are right, so the child understood the page. But they are mixed into one pile, and the question asks which came from the photo and which from the words.
Meets the Standard“The photo shows me they’re pink and stand on one leg. The words tell me they live by salty lakes and scoop up tiny shrimp.”The facts are sorted by where they came from. Pink and one leg appear only in the photo, and nothing in the photo shows the shrimp.
Question Stems to Use
What does the picture show us?What do the words tell us?Did you learn that from the picture or the words?What does the picture show that the words do not say?What do the words tell that you cannot see in the picture?

Common Mistakes with RI.1.6

Mixing all the facts in one pile

“They’re pink and eat shrimp,” with no idea which part of the page said which

Try this: Cover the photo with a sticky note and reread the words, then ask “Did the words tell us they are pink?”

Skipping the picture entirely

The child reads the words and turns the page without looking at the photo

Try this: Before reading the words, spend thirty seconds on the photo alone and list two things it shows, then read to compare.

Reading things into the picture

“That’s the mom and those are her babies,” which the photo does not show

Try this: Ask “What do you see that tells you that?” and keep only facts a classmate could point to in the photo.

Where RI.1.6 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.K.6Name the author and illustrator and say what each one does to present the information.
AlongsideRI.1.7Use the pictures and the details in a text together to describe its key ideas.RL.1.7Use a story’s pictures and details to describe its characters, setting or events.
Comes NextRI.2.6Identify the main purpose of a text: what the author wants to answer, explain or describe.RI.2.7Explain how images such as a diagram add to and clarify a text.

Practice RI.1.6

Quick Check

  1. What does the photo show about flamingos?
  2. What do flamingos eat, and how do you know?
  3. How does a flamingo’s beak work?

RI.1.6: Other Names

RI.1.6CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.6

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.