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Common Core ELAKindergartenWriting

W.K.8: Answer a Question from Experience or Books

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.8 · Cluster: Research to Build and Present Knowledge.

All 41 Kindergarten ELA Standards

The Official Wording

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

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

What W.K.8 Means in Plain English

With an adult guiding, kindergartners answer a question by remembering something they did or saw, or by looking in books the teacher hands out. Asked what plants need, a child recalls the class bean that got no water and drooped.

The question comes first and the information serves it, so the page answers something rather than listing everything the child remembers. The 1st-grade standard (W.1.8) reads the same, and by 2nd grade (W.2.8) the adult support drops out of the wording.

W.K.8 I Can Statements

  • I can remember what I saw to answer a question.
  • I can look at a book to find an answer.
  • I can draw and tell the answer to our question.

W.K.8 Worked Example

One class question, two answers. One uses the experiment and the book, the other remembers something else.

Prompt

Our question is: What do plants need to grow? Think about our two bean plants and the plant book we read. Draw and tell the answer.

Not Yet(Drawing: a red flower in a pot.) I have a flower at my house. It is red.A real memory, but it doesn’t answer the question. Nothing from the bean plants or the book shows up, so the reader still doesn’t know what plants need.
Meets the Standard(Drawing: two cups, one bean plant green and tall, one droopy and brown.) Plants need water and sun. Our bean with water got big. The bean with no water got droopy.The first sentence answers the question. The next two back it up with what the class saw happen to the two beans, and the sun part comes from the book.
Moves to Use
Say the question out loud before you start.Think: what did we see, and what did the book show?Answer the question in your first sentence.Draw what you saw that proves it.

Common Mistakes with W.K.8

Answering a different question

“I have a flower at my house. It is red.”

Try this: Write the question at the top of the page and reread it with the child before the drawing starts.

Guessing instead of looking

“Plants need juice and cookies.”

Try this: Send the child back to the book’s pictures or the class chart with “Show me where you saw that.”

Remembering the fun, not the facts

“We put water in cups. It was fun.”

Try this: Ask what the activity showed, like “What happened to the bean with no water?”, and record that answer.

Where W.K.8 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.K.1Ask and answer questions about key details in a nonfiction book, with prompting and support.
AlongsideRI.K.7Say what a picture in a nonfiction book shows, which is how most kindergartners gather facts from a book.W.K.2Name a topic and share some facts about it, the page this answer often becomes.
Comes NextW.1.8The same expectation in 1st grade, with adult guidance still in place.W.2.8Recall or gather information to answer a question, with no mention of adult support.

Practice W.K.8

Quick Check

  1. What question is the class answering?
  2. In the strong response, what happened to the bean with no water?
  3. The strong response says plants need sun. Where did that information come from?

W.K.8: Other Names

W.K.8CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.8

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.