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Indiana Standards

Indiana 1st Grade ELA Standards

All 33 Indiana English language arts standards for 1st grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Indiana Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

33 standards

Reading Foundations

8 standards
1.RF.1
Recognize the parts of a sentence, like the capital letter that starts the first word and the punctuation mark at the end.
1.RF.2
Put sounds together, including consonant blends like st and fl, to say words of one or more syllables, like blending s, t, o and p into stop.
1.RF.3
Hear and say the first, middle and last sounds in one-syllable words, like the f, i and sh sounds in fish.
1.RF.4
Break one-syllable words into each separate sound, like splitting ship into sh, i and p.
1.RF.5
Sound out regular words by themselves using hard and soft consonants, short and long vowels, blends, digraphs, vowel teams and r-controlled vowels, like city and her.
1.RF.6
Sound out one-syllable words of each main syllable type, like cat, car, go, rain and cake, even with no sentence around them.
1.RF.7
Read base words with added parts like prefixes and plural or verb endings, plus simple compound words and contractions, like redo, cats, jumped, sunset and can’t.
1.RF.8
Read decodable books aloud at a good pace, getting the words right and using natural expression.

Reading Comprehension

10 standards
1.RC.1
Ask and answer questions about a text’s main idea and important details to check and confirm that they understood it.
1.RC.2
Retell a story, fable or fairy tale from start to finish with its key details, and explain its message or lesson, like slow and steady wins the race.
1.RC.3
Use important details to name and describe a story’s characters, setting and main events, like who the hero is and what problem they face.
1.RC.4
Make a guess about what comes next in a story, then keep reading to check it, like whether the third pig’s brick house will stand.
1.RC.5
Name the usual features of familiar kinds of stories, like the magic and once upon a time opening of a fairy tale or the rhymes in a nursery rhyme.
1.RC.6
Retell what a text is mostly about and its important details, like the main steps in a book about how a seed grows.
1.RC.7
Use book parts like the table of contents, glossary and pictures to find key facts and describe what they say.
1.RC.8
Identify when a nonfiction text is organized in time order or to show a simple cause and effect, like heavy rain causing a flood.
1.RC.9
Show they know that clues in nearby words and sentences, plus features like a glossary or pictures, can help them figure out an unfamiliar word.
1.RC.10
Tell what words mean and sort them into groups, like opposites such as hot and cold, words that mean the same thing, or names of living things.

Writing

8 standards
1.W.1
Write every capital and small letter clearly, with even spaces between letters, between words and between sentences.
1.W.2
In writing or out loud, suggest an idea to a chosen audience in sentences that connect, like asking a parent for a pet, and give reasons to agree.
1.W.3
In writing or speaking, state a topic or main idea, give a few facts or details about it, and finish with a closing sentence.
1.W.4
In writing or speaking, tell a story with a beginning, middle and end, using exact words for characters and actions and time words like first, then and last.
1.W.5
With help, plan by talking and drawing, draft in pictures or words, add details, fix spelling, capitals and end marks, and use technology to publish neatly.
1.W.6
With help, research a topic by finding and naming a few sources, sorting the facts with a graphic organizer, and sharing what they learned informally.
1.W.7
Speak and write using common and proper nouns, pronouns like she and we, verbs for past, present and future, and full statements, questions, commands and exclamations.
1.W.8
Capitalize sentence starts, dates, names and I, use end marks and commas in dates and lists, sound out new words, and spell common patterns and tricky words like said.

Communication and Collaboration

7 standards
1.CC.1
Take part in talks about first-grade topics and texts with classmates and adults, like discussing a story with a partner, in a small group or as a whole class.
1.CC.2
Listen to others in a small group, wait for a turn to talk about the topic, and add their own ideas to the discussion.
1.CC.3
Ask a speaker questions, and answer theirs, to clear up anything confusing, like what a word in their talk meant.
1.CC.4
Ask and answer questions about important details in something they read, heard or watched to show they understood it.
1.CC.5
Say poems, rhymes, songs and stories aloud clearly with fitting words, describing people, places, things and events with details of how they look, sound or feel.
1.CC.6
Add drawings, pictures or objects when sharing information to make ideas, thoughts and feelings clearer, like showing a real leaf in a talk about trees.
1.CC.7
Give and follow spoken directions with two or three steps, like get your pencil, write your name, then line up.

The official Indiana documents

The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Indiana's standards, not the official wording, which Indiana Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.