K.9.E

ELAKindergarten

The Standard

listen to and experience first- and third-person texts.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading

Teacher's field guide

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do

Students listen for who is telling a story. They decide whether the speaker is part of the story or describing other characters from outside it.

What Mastery Looks Like

Students can tell whether the narrator is a character or an outside voice. They can point to words such as “I,” “we,” “he,” or “they” as evidence.

Common Misconceptions

Students may think every narrator is the author. They may also assume any story using a character’s name is told by that character.

How to Assess It

Read two short passages, one using “I” and one using “she.” Ask students to point to the passage told by a character and explain their clue.

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

  1. Give pairs two puppets and picture cards, then have one puppet tell its own action and the other describe that action.

  2. Read two versions of the same event and ask, “Who is telling each version, and which words helped you know?”

  3. Play Narrator Sort by having students place sentence cards under “character voice” or “outside voice” headings.

  4. Compare a child saying, “I lost my mitten,” with a teacher reporting, “Mia lost her mitten,” and name who speaks.

Keep exploring

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