South Dakota ELA K.L.1.a

ELAKindergartenLanguage

The Standard

K.L.1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when speaking.

Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs to produce complete sentences.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students name familiar people, animals, or things and tell what they do. They use a noun and a verb to make a complete sentence.
What Mastery Looks Like: Given a picture, a student can say or write, 'The bird sings.' They can point to the word that names the bird and the word that tells what it does.
Common Misconceptions: A child may say 'The dog' and think it is a sentence, though it does not tell what the dog does. Another may say 'Running fast' without naming who or what is running.
How to Assess It: Show a picture of a dog jumping. Ask, 'Say one complete sentence about this picture. What word names the animal, and what word tells what it does?'

Lesson moves

Give children 'The,' animal picture cards, and matching verb cards; have them arrange and read sentences such as 'The dog barks.'
Show a picture of a child kicking a ball and ask, 'Who is in the picture? What does the child do?' Write their sentence.
Play sentence or not: read 'The cat' and 'The cat sleeps,' then have children give a thumbs-up only for a complete sentence.
At cleanup, ask children to describe a classroom job in one sentence, such as 'The helper stacks blocks.'

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