South Dakota ELA 4.RI.10
Standard Cluster
By the end of the year, read and comprehend a variety of informational text. Read and comprehend grade-appropriate text with increasing challenge in text difficulty and complexity (e.g., book conventions: title page, table of contents, index; layout, text structure, language features, and knowledge demands). Self-select text for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks.
South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)
Cluster contents
Standards in This Cluster
4.RI.10 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.
Teacher's field guide
What This Cluster Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students read different kinds of nonfiction, including texts with harder words and layouts. They use features such as headings, captions, contents, and indexes to understand and find information. They choose texts for their interests and for school tasks.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain an article’s main idea and support it with details. They can use an index to find a topic and a caption to understand a picture. They can choose one text for enjoyment and another for a research question, then explain each choice.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may use the table of contents to look for a specific term when they need the index. They may skip captions or choose the shortest book even when it does not answer their question. Some think an unfamiliar word means the whole text is too hard.
How to Assess It
- Give students a one-page article about prairie dogs with headings and a caption. Ask them to write the main idea, one supporting detail, and how a heading or caption helped them understand it.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a nonfiction book and sticky notes; have them mark the contents, index, headings, and captions, then find one fact.
After reading an article about tornadoes, ask: Which heading helped you understand it, and what did you learn beneath it?
Play Fact Finder with animal encyclopedias: call out a question, then have partners find, read, and explain the answer.
Take students outside to spot one bird, then let them choose a bird guide or article to identify it and share a supporting detail.
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Printable 4.RI.10 Worksheet
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