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Common Core ELAKindergartenSpeaking & Listening

SL.K.4: Describe Familiar People, Places and Things

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.4 · Cluster: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.

Make a Morning MeetingAll 41 Kindergarten ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting and support, provide additional detail.

Common Core State Standards, Kindergarten, Speaking & Listening · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What SL.K.4 Means in Plain English

Kindergartners describe people, places, things and events they know well, such as a pet, a grandparent’s house or a birthday party, and add more when an adult prompts them. At show-and-tell, “This is my bear” grows into his name, his color, a ripped ear and his bedtime job.

“With prompting and support” is the key phrase: the teacher’s “What else?” or “What color is it?” does real work all year. In 1st grade (SL.1.4) students choose relevant details with less prompting and express their ideas and feelings clearly.

SL.K.4 I Can Statements

  • I can tell about a person, place or thing I know.
  • I can tell what something looks like.
  • I can add more when my teacher asks “What else?”

SL.K.4 Worked Example

One show-and-tell, two versions, and the second shows exactly what the teacher’s prompt adds.

Prompt

Show and tell: Tell us about something you brought from home. When the teacher asks “What else can you tell us?”, add more.

Not Yet“This is my bear.” (Teacher: “What else can you tell us?”) “It’s my bear.”The child names the bear and stops, and even with a prompt says the same thing again. Nothing about how it looks, what it does or why it matters.
Meets the Standard“This is my bear, Pickle. He is brown and his ear is ripped. I sleep with him every night.” (Teacher: “What happened to his ear?”) “My dog chewed it, and my mom sewed it back.”A name, what he looks like and what the child does with him, and when the teacher asks one more question, a new detail arrives: the story of the ear.
Moves to Use
Say what it is and what it is called.Tell what it looks like: color, size, shape.Tell what you do with it, or where it lives.When your teacher asks “What else?”, add one more thing.

Common Mistakes with SL.K.4

Naming instead of describing

“This is my bear,” a big smile, and a walk back to the carpet

Try this: Hold up three fingers for looks, does and where, and have the child touch one finger for each detail before sitting down.

Every detail is “nice”

“It’s nice. It’s really nice. It’s nice and soft.”

Try this: Ask a question with a sense in it, “What color is it?” or “How does it feel?”, so the answer has to be specific.

Retelling a whole day instead of describing

Asked about the beach: “We got in the car and then we stopped and then my brother…”

Try this: Narrow the prompt to one thing, the sand or the waves, and ask what it looked, felt or sounded like.

Where SL.K.4 Fits

Comes BeforeL.K.1Use everyday nouns and verbs in full sentences, the building blocks of any description.
AlongsideSL.K.5Add a drawing to a description when it helps show more detail.W.K.2Draw, tell and write a few facts about a topic, the written cousin of a spoken description.
Comes NextSL.1.4Describe people, places, things and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly.

Practice SL.K.4

Classroom TimerFree ToolOne minute per show-and-tell on the board, long enough for three details and short enough that the carpet keeps listening.1 minuteShow and tellOn the board
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Quick Check

  1. Name three details the strong description gives about the bear.
  2. Which detail in the strong description came only after the teacher’s prompt?
  3. A child says, “My grandma’s house is nice.” Give one prompt that would pull out more detail.

SL.K.4: Other Names

SL.K.4CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.4

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.