Grade 7 reading passages with questions
5 original 7th grade passages with five to seven questions, an answer key and vocabulary. Print them or read them big.
5 passages of 253 to 331 words. An animal with a surprising body, cells, inertia and seat belts, and the Silk Road, plus a story about a shy artist and a community project.
Passages
- The Clever Octopusnonfiction, animals, 275 words
- The Muralfiction, friendship and community, 331 words
- Cells, the Building Blocks of Lifenonfiction, life science, 273 words
- Inertia and Seat Beltsnonfiction, motion and forces, 315 words
- The Silk Roadnonfiction, world history and trade, 253 words
How to use them in 7th grade
Ask students to separate what the text states from what they infer. For the octopus text, have them list three facts and the question the author leaves open. For the cells and inertia texts, ask students to put the cell theory or Newton's first law into one sentence of their own, and then test it on an everyday example. For the story, ask for a one-sentence theme and the two details that best support it.
What the text looks like
Complex sentences, precise vocabulary (neurons, nucleus, caravan, inertia), a text structure that moves from description to puzzle or from idea to example, and a theme to state in a sentence.
Every passage in the set: Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5, Grade 6, 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 7th grade reading level mean here?
Each passage here is checked with the Flesch-Kincaid formula, and for this grade the result has to be 5.5 to 9. 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.