Common Core ELA2nd GradeReading: Informational

RI.2.3: Connect Events, Ideas and Steps in a Text

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.3 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

The Official Wording

Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 2, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.2.3 Means in Plain English

Second graders explain how one event, idea or step in a nonfiction text leads to the next. In the story of braille, heavy raised-letter books made reading slow, a soldier’s dot code gave Louis Braille an idea, and his simpler code made books small.

In 1st grade (RI.1.3) children linked just two people, events or ideas. Second grade asks for a whole chain, in history, science or a set of directions. In 3rd grade (RI.3.3) students describe the chain using words of time, order and cause, like because and as a result.

RI.2.3 I Can Statements

I can tell how one event in history led to the next.
I can explain how the steps in a set of directions connect.
I can use because and so to link two events.

RI.2.3 Worked Example

A short history passage where each event depends on the one before, and two answers: one that lists the events and one that links them.

Read the Story

Louis Braille was born in France in 1809. When he was three, he hurt his eye in an accident, and by age five he could not see at all.At his school for blind children in Paris, students read by feeling big raised letters with their fingers. The letters had to be so big that each book was huge and heavy, and the school had only a few of them.In 1821, when Louis was 12, an army captain named Charles Barbier brought the school a code of raised dots that soldiers could read in the dark.Barbier’s code was hard to use. One sound could take up to 12 dots, too many to feel with one fingertip. So Louis worked to make it simpler, and by age 15 he had a code where every letter used no more than six dots.Small dots meant small books, and a reader could feel each letter with one touch. Today, people all over the world read braille.

A short passage written for this page.

Question: How did Charles Barbier’s dot code lead to braille?

Not Yet“Louis went to a school in Paris. Then a captain came with a code. Then Louis made braille.”Every event is right and in order, but “then” only says what came next. The answer never says what Louis kept from Barbier’s code, what was wrong with it, or why the fix mattered.

Meets the Standard“Barbier’s code showed Louis that people could read by feeling dots. But one sound took up to 12 dots, too many for one fingertip, so Louis made a simpler code with no more than six dots a letter. Because the dots were small, the books got small, and a reader could feel each letter with one touch.”Each event is joined to the one it caused with so or because, and the chain runs from Barbier’s idea, through its problem, to the code people read today.

Question Stems to Use

What happened because of that?Why were the school’s books so hard to use?What did Louis keep from Barbier’s code, and what did he change?How did this event lead to the next one?What might have happened if Barbier had never shared his code?

Common Mistakes with RI.2.3

Listing events with “then”

“Then a captain came. Then Louis made a code.”

Try this: Ban “then” for one answer and offer because, so and that is why as the only linking words allowed.

Skipping a link in the chain

“Barbier showed his code, so everyone reads braille.”

Try this: Have students draw the chain as boxes and arrows, then ask what goes in the gap between Barbier’s code and braille.

Treating order as cause

“Louis hurt his eye, so the books were heavy.”

Try this: Ask “Did the first thing make the second happen, or did it just come before?” for every link a student writes.

Where RI.2.3 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.1.3Describe the connection between two people, events, ideas or pieces of information.

AlongsideRI.2.1Ask and answer why and how questions, the questions a chain of events answers.RI.2.7Explain how a diagram, like one of a machine at work, makes the steps in a text clearer.

Comes NextRI.3.3Describe the same kinds of chains using words of time, order and cause and effect.

Practice RI.2.3

Quick Check

Why was reading slow at Louis’s school?
The raised letters had to be so big that each book was huge and heavy, and there were only a few books.
What was the problem with Barbier’s code?
One sound could take up to 12 dots, too many to feel with one fingertip.
How did Louis make the code simpler?
He made a code where every letter used no more than six dots.

RI.2.3: Other Names

RI.2.3CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.3