Grade 5 reading passages with questions
7 original 5th grade passages with five to seven questions, an answer key and vocabulary. Print them or read them big.
7 passages of 176 to 241 words. More information per sentence and a clearer point of view: a famous invention, a planet, how plants make food, where food goes in the body, supply and demand, and how bridges stay up. There is also a story about a race.
Passages
- Hello, Mr. Watsonnonfiction, inventions and history, 224 words
- Jupiter, the Giant Planetnonfiction, space, 221 words
- The Last Lapfiction, sports and friendship, 241 words
- How Plants Make Foodnonfiction, plants and energy, 183 words
- Where Food Goesnonfiction, the human body, 179 words
- Supply and Demandnonfiction, economics, 176 words
- How Bridges Stay Upnonfiction, engineering, 205 words
How to use them in 5th grade
Use them to practice summarizing in two sentences, finding the main idea and supporting details, and explaining what an author's last line means. For the science texts, ask students to label a quick diagram from the words alone, such as the path of food through the body, then check it against the passage. The story has a character who changes: ask students to find the sentence where the change happens.
What the text looks like
Longer paragraphs, process words such as first, next and as a result, dates and numbers to find, and quotation marks inside nonfiction and fiction.
Every passage in the set: Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade 8. Or see the whole list, check any text with the readability checker, or time a read with the fluency timer.
Questions
What does 5th grade reading level mean here?
Each passage here is checked with the Flesch-Kincaid formula, and for this grade the result has to be 3.5 to 7. It is a formula, so use your own judgment, and your own students, to decide whether a text is right.
Can I print them?
Yes. Every passage has Print student copy, with lines to write the answers on, and Print with answers, which fills them in.
Where do the passages come from?
They were written for Peabody Teach. None is copied from a book, a test or another site.