South Dakota ELA K.RL.6

ELAKindergartenReading Literature

The Standard

Identify the author's purpose for writing a story with prompting and support.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025) · Craft and Structure

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: With questions and picture clues, children say why an author might have written a story. They point to a story detail that supports their answer.
What Mastery Looks Like: A child gives a plausible reason the author wrote the story, such as to entertain readers. With a prompt, the child points to a page that supports it.
Common Misconceptions: Children may tell what happened instead of why the author wrote the story. They may name the illustrator as the writer or assume every story was written to teach a lesson.
How to Assess It: After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar aloud, ask, “Why might Eric Carle have written this story? Point to a picture that supports your answer.”

Lesson moves

Have pairs place sticky notes on funny or surprising pages of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, then tell a partner why Carle might have included them.
After a read-aloud, ask partners why Eric Carle wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar and which page gives them a clue.
Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Little Red Hen aloud; have children raise smile or lesson cards and point to a clue.
Write a four-line story about a missing sock to amuse a friend; read it aloud and ask which detail shows your reason.

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