Kindergarten · English Language Arts · Parent guide
Short answer. RI.K.6 asks kindergarteners to name the author and illustrator of a nonfiction book and say what each does. Plain-English guide with home activities.
Quick answer
Your kindergartener should be able to name the author and illustrator of an informational book and explain each job: the author writes the words that teach you, and the illustrator makes the pictures, photos, or diagrams that help you understand. Notice this one doesn't say "with prompting and support." By the time it's assessed, kids are expected to do it fairly independently, reading the names off the cover with whatever decoding help they need.
Why parents see this skill
Understanding that a person wrote this fact book plants an early seed of source awareness, the idea that information comes from somewhere and someone. It also helps kids see nonfiction images as deliberate teaching tools rather than decoration, which changes how carefully they look at them.
For reference
Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information 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.
Movies have credits; so do books. Before each nonfiction read-aloud, have your child announce the credits from the cover: title, author, illustrator or photographer. Help with the names as needed. It's a ten-second ritual that covers this standard completely.
Mid-book, point at something and ask whose work it is. Point at a sentence: author or illustrator? Point at the diagram of the ant hill: whose job? Quick-fire, five rounds, lots of giggling if you point at increasingly tiny things. The two roles get very clear, very fast.
Make a four-page fact book about your pet or your street. Your child picks the facts and dictates them (author) or draws the pictures (illustrator), and you take the other job. Put both names on the cover with the correct titles, then read your book at dinner.
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.K 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 resourceHow is RI.K.6 different from RL.K.6? We already practiced author and illustrator with storybooks.
Same roles, different kind of book, and one real difference: the RL version includes "with prompting and support" while this one doesn't, so a bit more independence is expected here. In nonfiction the illustrator's job also gets more interesting, since diagrams and photos teach rather than just show the story. Your storybook practice transfers almost entirely.
Many nonfiction books for kids use photos. Is there still an "illustrator" to name?
Sometimes it's a photographer credited instead, or the copyright page lists photo sources. Teachers treat this flexibly: the point is that someone made the pictures on purpose to present information. If your child says "a photographer took these pictures to show us real penguins," that's the standard, met and exceeded.
Keep the sequence
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