The World's Tallest Buildings

Print the page and read the directions with your child: Read the passage on page 1. Then use it to answer the questions on page 2. Fill in the bubble or write your answer on the lines. When they finish, check the work together with the answer key.

A nonfiction passage, Reaching for the Sky, explains that the tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which opened in 2010 and rises 828 meters (2,717 feet), and the three big problems engineers solve for tall towers: wind, weight and getting people to the top. It describes how engineers test models in wind tunnels. Page 2 asks where the Burj Khalifa is, the main idea, what a foundation is, why wind is stronger high up and how engineers study wind. The directions on the page read: Read the passage on page 1. Then use it to answer the questions on page 2. Fill in the bubble or write your answer on the lines. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 5th Grade paragraphs & passages, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with nonfiction passages. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

A nonfiction passage, also called informational text, gives true facts about real people, places and events. Most 5th grade sheets have a passage or two short texts on one topic, then a page of questions (the Veterans Day passage fits both on one page), and every sheet has an answer key.

Look at what each part of the text is mostly about. A subheading often marks where a new big idea starts, so ask what the details in each part have in common. On the Silk Road sheet, one part tells how goods such as silk traveled and the other tells how ideas such as papermaking and Buddhism spread. Students write each main idea in a web with two key details under it, then summarize using both.

To quote accurately is to copy the exact words of a text inside quotation marks, without changing or leaving out a word (RI.5.1). On the quoting sheets, students read an inference, such as Sequoyah was very patient, then copy the sentence that supports it with its paragraph number.

Most sheets have a passage page and a question page, the paired text sheets add a third page, and the Veterans Day passage fits its text and 3 questions on one page. The 96 newest nonfiction sheets have six or nine items: a web, chart or chain to fill in, multiple choice questions with three options and a written answer. The older 20 nonfiction and 20 fiction sheets mix multiple choice and short written answers.

They are longer and the questions go deeper. Students find two main ideas in one text, quote a passage accurately to back an inference, compare the structure of two texts on the same topic, and combine facts from a text, a table and a map. The stories ask about theme, point of view and figurative language.

The 117 nonfiction passages cover history, science and people, such as Machu Picchu, Mae Jemison, the Berlin Wall, Mars rovers, the Nile, Angkor Wat and the Miracle on Ice, plus older sheets on vaccines and black holes. The 20 stories include The Last Train Home, The Tide Pool Mystery and The Dragon Who Could Not Fly.

Yes. All 137 sheets have an answer key. Written questions show a sample answer, and on the newest sheets every chart and web box lists other answers the passage supports.