Maryland ELA RI.K.4

ELAKindergartenReading Informational Text

The Standard

With modeling, prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

Maryland College and Career Ready Standards for English Language Arts (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Children listen to or look at a nonfiction text and notice a word they do not know. With help, they ask what it means and use the words and pictures to answer.
What Mastery Looks Like: When a rabbit fact page uses the word “burrow,” a child asks, “What is a burrow?” With a picture or teacher hint, they explain that it is a hole where an animal lives.
Common Misconceptions: Some children skip an unfamiliar word or repeat it instead of asking about it. Others guess from the picture without listening to the sentence.
How to Assess It: Show a photo of a rabbit near a hole and read, “A rabbit rests in its burrow.” Ask each child, “What could you ask about burrow? What does it mean?”

Lesson moves

After reading a rabbit fact page, have pairs build a burrow with blocks and ask each other, “What is a burrow?”
Show a rabbit fact page and ask, “Which picture clue helps us answer, What is a burrow?”
Play word detective with rabbit fact cards showing burrow, fur, and whiskers; partners ask about each word and answer using the pictures.
At the school garden, read, “The stem holds up the flower”; ask what “stem” means, then have children point and answer.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to RI.K.4, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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