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Common Core ELA5th GradeReading: Informational

RI.5.1: Quote Accurately to Explain and Infer

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.1 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

All 43 5th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 5, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.5.1 Means in Plain English

Fifth graders answer questions about nonfiction with the author’s exact words in quotation marks, copied letter for letter. That holds when the answer is stated and when it is inferred: a passage that never says why the Pony Express ended still has the lines that prove it.

Fourth graders (RI.4.1) could point to details and examples in their own words. Fifth grade asks for the words themselves, quoted accurately. In sixth grade (RI.6.1) the quotation becomes evidence for an analysis of the text, not just proof of an answer.

RI.5.1 I Can Statements

  • I can quote a text word for word to support my answer.
  • I can use a quotation to prove something the text states directly.
  • I can quote the lines that led me to an inference.

RI.5.1 Worked Example

The passage never says why the Pony Express ended, so the answer is an inference, and what separates the two answers is whether the quotation is really in the text.

Read the Story
In April 1860, riders for the Pony Express began carrying mail between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, a route of about 1,900 miles.Riders switched to a fresh horse at stations every 10 to 15 miles, and a letter could cross the whole route in about ten days. By stagecoach, the same letter often took more than three weeks.On October 24, 1861, workers finished the first telegraph line across the country. A message that had taken ten days could now arrive in minutes.Two days later, the Pony Express stopped carrying mail. It had lasted about a year and a half.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: The passage never says why the Pony Express ended. What can you infer, and which exact words lead you there?
Not Yet“The Pony Express ended because, as the text says, ‘the telegraph put the riders out of business.’”The inference is reasonable, but those words are not in the passage. Quotation marks promise the author’s exact words, and this answer invents them.
Meets the Standard“I think the telegraph made the riders unnecessary. Workers finished the telegraph line on October 24, 1861, and ‘A message that had taken ten days could now arrive in minutes.’ The next line says, ‘Two days later, the Pony Express stopped carrying mail.’”The inference is in the student’s own words, and both quotations match the passage exactly. Read together, they show the timing that makes the inference convincing.
Question Stems to Use
What does the text say, word for word, about…?The text doesn’t say it outright. What can you figure out, and which line tells you?Find the sentence that proves it and copy it exactly.Is that the author’s wording or yours? Check it against the page.Which two lines, read together, lead to that inference?

Common Mistakes with RI.5.1

Quoting words that are not on the page

“The text says ‘the telegraph put the riders out of business.’”

Try this: Have partners check every quotation against the passage word by word, and treat any mismatch as a paraphrase that loses its quotation marks.

Quoting without saying what it proves

An answer that is only a quotation, dropped in with no sentence around it

Try this: Teach a frame: state the answer in your own words, give the quotation, then add one sentence on how the words prove it.

Thinking an inference needs no evidence

“It’s my inference, so I don’t need a quote.”

Try this: Ask for the lines that led to the inference, then have students explain how those lines, read together, point to it.

Where RI.5.1 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.4.1Refer to details and examples when explaining what a text says and what it implies.
AlongsideRL.5.1The same skill with stories, plays and poems.W.5.9Draw evidence from informational texts to support writing, such as checking an author’s reasons.
Comes NextRI.6.1Cite textual evidence to support an analysis of what a text says and what it implies.

Practice RI.5.1

Quick Check

  1. How long did a letter take to cross the Pony Express route? Quote the passage.
  2. On what date was the first telegraph line across the country finished?
  3. Why would people stop paying riders once the telegraph was finished? Quote the line that tells you.

RI.5.1: Other Names

RI.5.1CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.1

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.