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Common Core ELA4th GradeReading: Informational

RI.4.1: Use Details to Explain and Infer

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

All 43 4th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 4, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.4.1 Means in Plain English

Fourth graders back up answers about a nonfiction text with its details and examples, both for what it states outright and for what they work out. If an article never says why animals survive on a dry rooftop, students infer it and point to the lines that prove it.

Third grade (RI.3.1) asked students to answer questions by pointing back to the text. Fourth grade adds inferences, each one tied to specific details. Fifth grade (RI.5.1) raises the bar again: students quote the text accurately instead of pointing to it in their own words.

RI.4.1 I Can Statements

  • I can answer questions about a text using its details.
  • I can make an inference and explain which details support it.
  • I can tell what the text states from what I figured out.

RI.4.1 Worked Example

The passage never says why tardigrades can live on a rooftop, so the question asks for an inference, and the weak answer gives one with nothing behind it.

Read the Story
Tardigrades, also called water bears, are animals so small they are hard to see without a microscope. Each one has eight stubby legs tipped with tiny claws.Many tardigrades live in the thin film of water that coats clumps of moss.When the moss dries out, a tardigrade does not crawl away to look for water. It pulls in its head and legs, lets almost all the water leave its body and curls into a dry little ball called a tun.A tun can stay that way for years. When rain soaks the moss again, the tardigrade takes in water, uncurls and walks off.Scientists have found tardigrades in moss growing on rooftops, on high mountains and in Antarctica.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: Moss on a sunny rooftop dries out between rains. The passage never says how tardigrades survive there. What can you infer, and which details support it?
Not Yet“Tardigrades are really tough, so they can live anywhere.”It is a guess dressed up as an inference. It points to no detail, and “anywhere” goes further than the passage ever does.
Meets the Standard“I infer that the dry spells don’t kill them. The passage says that when moss dries out, a tardigrade curls into a dry ball called a tun, and that a tun can stay that way for years. It also says that when rain soaks the moss again, the tardigrade uncurls and walks off. So on a roof, it waits out the sunny days as a tun until the next rain.”The inference is stated plainly, and each step rests on a detail the student can point to: the tun, the years, the rain.
Question Stems to Use
What does the text say about this? Point to the line.What can you figure out that the text does not say?Which details helped you figure that out?Is that in the text, or did you infer it?What in the text makes you think so?

Common Mistakes with RI.4.1

Inferring with nothing behind it

“They’re tough, so they can live anywhere.”

Try this: Require a “because the text says” sentence after every inference, and send back any inference that cannot point to a line.

Copying a sentence as the answer

“A tun can stay that way for years.” written as the whole answer to a why question

Try this: Ask students to say what the detail proves in their own words, then add the detail as the evidence for it.

Mixing up stated and inferred

“The text says dry spells don’t kill them.” when the text never says that

Try this: Sort answers into two columns, “The text says” and “I figured out,” so students notice which claims need a detail behind them.

Where RI.4.1 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.3.1Ask and answer questions about a text, pointing to the text as the basis for each answer.
AlongsideRL.4.1The same move with stories: details and examples to explain what a story says and what it implies.W.4.9Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection and research.
Comes NextRI.5.1Quote accurately from a text when explaining what it says and when drawing inferences.

Practice RI.4.1

Quick Check

  1. What does a tardigrade do when the moss it lives in dries out?
  2. What happens to a tun when rain soaks the moss again?
  3. What can you infer about tardigrades living in rooftop moss, and which details support it?

RI.4.1: Other Names

RI.4.1CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1

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.