1st Grade · English Language Arts · Parent guide
Short answer. RI.1.6 means your child can tell which facts come from a book's pictures and which come from its words. A plain-language guide for parents of first graders.
Quick answer
In a good nonfiction book, the photos and diagrams teach some things and the sentences teach others. RI.1.6 asks your child to keep those two channels straight: to say "I learned that from the picture" versus "the words told me that." It sounds small, but it means they are tracking where information comes from, which is a genuinely grown-up reading move in a six year old package.
Why parents see this skill
Knowing where a fact came from is the seed of sourcing, the skill behind research and, eventually, judging what to believe. More immediately, it teaches kids to mine diagrams and photos for information on purpose, which doubles what they get out of every science book they open.
For reference
Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text.Official Common Core source
See it, then try it
You do not need a lesson plan. Look for these signs in ordinary play, reading, and conversation, then choose one short activity.
Open a nonfiction page and cover the text. Ask what the picture alone teaches, and list 2 or 3 things out loud. Then read the words and list what they added. Finish with the question: "Which facts came from where?" Whole thing runs about ten minutes.
Draw a line down a piece of paper: eyeball sketch on one side, ear on the other. After reading a spread, sort a few facts: things the pictures showed go under the eye, things the words said go under the ear. They can draw or you can scribe, no neat handwriting required.
Read a page aloud and then ask: "If this book had no pictures at all, what would we not know?" Then flip it: "If it had only pictures and no words?" Kids find it funny to imagine the broken versions of the book, and answering requires exactly the split this standard is testing.
Choose what helps today
Start with the domain guide for context, use the learning library when a concept needs explaining, or print a page when your child is ready to practice.
See every RI.1 skill in order and how the codes fit together.
Open resourceFilter free pages by literacy, phonics, handwriting, and comprehension skills.
Open resourceShort, repeatable reading activities for common early words.
Open resourceSimple reading and vocabulary ideas for home and classroom routines.
Open resourceWhy does it matter where the information came from, as long as my child learned it?
For the fact itself, it doesn't much. The payoff is the habit: a kid who tracks sources at 6 becomes a student who can cite evidence at 10 and question a sketchy claim at 14. First grade is just the friendliest possible training ground, because the only two sources are the picture and the words.
How do teachers check this without making it weird?
Usually with one question tacked onto normal reading: "Did the words tell you that, or the picture?" Some teachers use a page with a rich diagram and sparse text, then ask kids to name one fact from each. If your child can answer that at home, they are set.
Keep the sequence
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