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Who Is Telling the Story

A 40-minute Grade 1 lesson on identifying who is speaking at each point in a story, and telling the narrator from the characters.

Who Is Telling the Story is a free 40-minute Grade 1 English lesson plan for Common Core standard RL.1.6 — work out who is speaking at each point in the story. It is timed across 5 sections, gives the exact wording to use where the wording carries the mathematics, names 3 misconceptions with the teaching move that addresses each, and ends with an exit ticket and a printable worksheet with its answer key.

Grade:
Grade 1
Length:
40 minutes
Standard:
RL.1.6

Grade 1 · Reading: Literature

RL.1.6

Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text.

Objective

Students will be able to say who is speaking at a given point in a story.

Students are successful when they can

  • Identifies the narrator's words.
  • Identifies a character's words.
  • Uses the speech marks and the said-tag as evidence.

What you need

  • A story with plenty of dialogue
  • Two coloured highlighters
  • The printable practice sheet linked at the end of this plan

The lesson

Warm-up — read it in two voices

5 min
  1. Read a page in two voices: one for the narrator, one for the character.
  2. Ask how you knew which was which.

Teach — inside and outside the marks

13 min
  1. Highlight the words inside the speech marks in one colour.
  2. Highlight the said-tag in the other. It names the speaker.
  3. Everything left is the narrator.
  4. Do a page together. Then ask who says the most on that page.
  5. Show a line where the said-tag comes first and one where it comes last. Both work.
“Inside the marks is somebody talking. Outside them is the person telling us about it.”

Guided practice — colour a page

12 min
  1. Pairs highlight a page in the two colours.
  2. Then they read it aloud in two voices.
  3. Circulate for pairs highlighting the said-tag as speech.

Independent practice

8 min
  1. Students complete the who-is-speaking page.
  2. The passage is on the sheet.

Close

2 min
  1. Read one line aloud. Ask who said it and how they know.

What goes wrong, and why

Each of these is a reasoning error rather than carelessness. The fix addresses the reasoning.

Includes the said-tag inside the speech.

Why: It sits next to the speech and names the speaker, so it feels like part of it.

Fix: Read the sentence as the character would say it, including the tag. 'I am cold, said Ravi' is obviously wrong out loud.

Thinks the narrator is one of the characters.

Why: Somebody is telling the story, so it must be somebody in it.

Fix: Ask whether the narrator is ever spoken to. In a third-person story, nobody addresses them, because they are not there.

Cannot identify the speaker when the tag is missing.

Why: Writers drop the tag in an exchange between two people, and the child has no other cue.

Fix: Teach the alternating rule: in a two-person exchange, each new paragraph is the other speaker.

If they are not there yet

  • Use a page where every line has a said-tag.
  • Highlight only the speech, and leave the narrator until later.

If they finish early

  • Find a page where the tag is missing and work out the speaker.
  • Rewrite a line so a different character says it.
  • Find a story told in the first person and say how it differs.

Exit ticket

Who says this line? How do you know?

What to look for: The speech marks or the said-tag named as the evidence. A guess with no evidence means the highlighting needs another session.

Printable practice for RL.1.6

Free to print and copy, answer key included. Each sheet can generate a fresh set of problems for a retake.

Questions about Who Is Telling the Story

How long does the Who Is Telling the Story lesson take?

40 minutes, split across 5 timed sections: warm-up 5 min, teach 13 min, guided practice 12 min, independent practice 8 min, close 2 min. The minutes are stated per section and add up to the stated length, so the plan can be cut or extended at a section boundary rather than abandoned halfway.

Which standard does Who Is Telling the Story teach?

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.6 — RL.1.6, Reading: Literature for Grade 1: “Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text.” In plain terms, work out who is speaking at each point in the story.

What do I need to teach this lesson?

A story with plenty of dialogue, two coloured highlighters and the printable practice sheet linked at the end of this plan. Everything listed is either ordinary classroom equipment or a free printable from this site — there is nothing to buy and nothing to prepare beyond photocopying.

What mistakes should I expect in this lesson?

Three, each a reasoning error rather than carelessness: includes the said-tag inside the speech; thinks the narrator is one of the characters and cannot identify the speaker when the tag is missing. The plan gives the thinking behind each one and the teaching move that addresses the thinking rather than the symptom.

How do I know whether the lesson worked?

The exit ticket asks: “Who says this line? How do you know?.” The speech marks or the said-tag named as the evidence. A guess with no evidence means the highlighting needs another session. That tells you whether the class needs a reteach or a thirty-second conversation before you plan tomorrow.

Is there a worksheet to go with Who Is Telling the Story?

Yes — 1 printable RL.1.6 worksheet, linked at the end of the plan and free like the rest of the site. Each one comes with an answer key and 25 versions, so the practice after the lesson can be a different paper on every desk.

Is Who Is Telling the Story free to use?

Yes. The plan, its printables and their answer keys are free to read, print and photocopy for your own class, with no account and no email capture. It was last reviewed on 7 September 2026. Please do not resell it or republish it as your own.

Last reviewed 2026-09-07. Aligned to RL.1.6 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.