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Common Core ELAKindergartenReading: Literature

RL.K.1: Ask and Answer Questions About Key Details

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

All 41 Kindergarten ELA Standards

The Official Wording

With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

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

What RL.K.1 Means in Plain English

Kindergartners listen to a story and, with help, ask and answer questions about the parts that matter: who is in it, what goes wrong, what happens at the end. After a story about a lost boot, “Who found it?” is a key-detail question. “What color was the rug?” is not.

The help is the point at this age: the teacher asks first, points to the picture and offers a choice, “Was it Rosa or Biscuit?” By spring children ask their own who and where questions. In 1st grade the same questions come without the teacher’s support (RL.1.1).

RL.K.1 I Can Statements

  • I can ask a who or what question about a story.
  • I can answer a question about the important parts of a story.
  • I can show the picture that helped me answer.

RL.K.1 Worked Example

One question after a read-aloud, and two answers a kindergartner might give.

Read the Story
Rosa had two red boots.One morning, one boot was gone.She looked under the bed. She looked in the tub.Then her dog, Biscuit, trotted in with the boot in his mouth.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: Who found Rosa’s lost boot?
Not Yet“Rosa found it under the bed.”Rosa looked under the bed, but the boot was not there. The child remembered a place from the story instead of the detail that answers the question.
Meets the Standard“Biscuit did. He came in with the boot in his mouth.”It names the right character and adds the detail that proves it, the boot in his mouth.
Question Stems to Use
Who is this story about?What went wrong?Where did she look?What happened at the end?I wonder why…

Common Mistakes with RL.K.1

Answering with any detail they remember

“She looked in the tub!” for “Who found the boot?”

Try this: Stress the question word, “Who found it?”, and ask the child to answer with a name from the story.

Telling their own story instead

“My dog ate my shoe once!”

Try this: Acknowledge the connection briefly, then turn back to the book: “In this story, who had the boot?”

Questions that only the teacher asks

Children answer well but never ask a question themselves

Try this: Model one “I wonder” question per read-aloud, then let a partner ask one about the next page.

Where RL.K.1 Fits

Comes BeforeRL.K.10Listen and join in when the class reads a story together.
AlongsideRI.K.1The same questions about an informational book.SL.K.2Ask and answer questions about anything read aloud, and ask when something is confusing.
Comes NextRL.1.1Ask and answer questions about the important details without prompting.

Practice RL.K.1

Quick Check

  1. What did Rosa lose?
  2. Name two places Rosa looked.
  3. Who found the boot, and how do you know?

RL.K.1: Other Names

RL.K.1CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.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.