Skip to main content
Common Core ELA4th GradeReading: Literature

RL.4.6: First-Person and Third-Person Narration

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.6 · Cluster: Craft and Structure.

All 43 4th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations.

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

What RL.4.6 Means in Plain English

Fourth graders compare who tells a story and from where. A first-person narrator says I and can only share what that one character sees and thinks. A third-person narrator stands outside and can show what several characters do, and sometimes what they think.

In 3rd grade (RL.3.6) students told their own point of view apart from the narrator’s or a character’s. Fourth grade compares narrators across stories. In 5th grade (RL.5.6) students explain how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view shapes the way events are described.

RL.4.6 I Can Statements

  • I can tell whether a story is told in first or third person.
  • I can explain what a first-person narrator can and can’t know.
  • I can compare how two narrators tell the same events.

RL.4.6 Worked Example

The same afternoon told twice, once by the boy in the middle of it and once by a narrator standing outside. Only one of them knows where the tortoise is.

Read the Story
Version 1, first person: Mrs. Kowalczyk left me in charge of her tortoise, Admiral, for one week, and on the second day he vanished. I checked under the deck, behind the rain barrel and twice inside the shed.I didn’t tell anyone. I just sat on her back steps with a strawberry in my hand, feeling like the worst pet sitter in the world.Version 2, third person: Teodor searched the yard until dark, his face getting redder with every empty corner. He never thought to look at the woodpile, where Admiral sat wedged between two logs, chewing a clover leaf.From the kitchen window next door, Teodor’s older sister watched him. She had found the tortoise an hour ago, and she was deciding how long to wait before saying so.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: Compare the two versions. How does the first-person narrator tell this afternoon differently from the third-person narrator? What does each one let the reader know?
Not Yet“Version 1 is first person because it says I, and Version 2 is third person because it says he.”It labels both versions correctly and stops. The standard asks for a comparison, and this answer never says what either narrator shows or hides.
Meets the Standard“In Version 1, Teodor tells it himself, so we feel his panic from the inside: he sits on the steps ‘feeling like the worst pet sitter in the world.’ But he only knows what he knows, so the tortoise is simply gone. In Version 2, the narrator stands outside and sees more than Teodor does: Admiral is in the woodpile ‘chewing a clover leaf,’ and his sister ‘had found the tortoise an hour ago.’ The first version gives us his feelings. The second gives us the whole yard, and a joke he isn’t in on.”It compares what each narrator can know, uses a detail from both versions, and explains what the reader gains and loses with each point of view.
Question Stems to Use
Who is telling this version, a character or someone outside the story?Which pronouns does the narrator use for the main character?What does this narrator know that the other one doesn’t?Whose thoughts can each narrator share?How would the story change if the other narrator told it?

Common Mistakes with RL.4.6

Counting pronouns and stopping

“It says I, so it’s first person.”

Try this: Follow every label with a second question, what can this narrator know, and have students prove it with a detail only that version has.

Mistaking a quoted I for the narrator

“It’s first person whenever a character says I in quotation marks.”

Try this: Have students cover everything inside quotation marks, then check the pronouns left over, since only the narration decides the point of view.

Assuming third person knows everything

“Third person always knows what everyone is thinking.”

Try this: Compare a third-person story that stays with one character to one that visits several minds, and ask students which kind each passage is.

Where RL.4.6 Fits

Comes BeforeRL.3.6Tell your own point of view apart from the narrator’s or a character’s.
AlongsideRI.4.6Compare a firsthand and a secondhand account of the same event.W.4.3Write a story that sets up a situation and introduces a narrator and characters.
Comes NextRL.5.6Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.

Practice RL.4.6

Quick Check

  1. Where does the first-person narrator search for Admiral?
  2. Where is Admiral the whole time?
  3. What does the third-person version tell us about the sister that Teodor doesn’t know?

RL.4.6: Other Names

RL.4.6CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.6

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.