South Dakota ELA K.RF.1.f

ELAKindergartenReading Foundational Skills

The Standard

K.RF.1: Demonstrate foundational understanding of print concepts and features of print.

Identify the role of the author and the illustrator in a story.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students tell who writes a story's words and who makes its pictures. They look at a book's cover or title page to find each person's name.
What Mastery Looks Like: Given a picture book, a student names the author and illustrator and explains each job. The student knows one person can do both jobs.
Common Misconceptions: Students may swap the jobs, saying the illustrator wrote the words and the author drew the pictures. They may think one person cannot do both jobs.
How to Assess It: Show the title page of The Gruffalo. Ask, “Who wrote the words? Who made the pictures? How do you know?”

Lesson moves

Fold paper into tiny books; have students dictate a story sentence, draw its picture, and label themselves as both author and illustrator.
Show a page from a class read-aloud and ask, “What did the author tell us? What did the illustrator show us?”
Play a sorting game: students place cards showing printed words or drawings under “author” or “illustrator.”
At the classroom library, find a book marked “written by” and “illustrated by”; read the names with a partner.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to K.RF.1.f, 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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