Summarize a Nonfiction Passage About Woolly Mammoths

Have your child read the passage once for the gist, then again to underline the facts each question needs. Read the short definition at the top of the question page together before they start. Check with the answer key, which lists the answers the passage supports.

Summarize a passage on woolly mammoths, whose tusks swept snow off grass and small ears lost less heat. A nonfiction text gives true facts. As you read, think about what the whole passage is mostly about. The directions on the page read: Read the passage. Then, turn the page and answer the questions. On page 2: Use the passage on page 1. Fill in chart rows 1 to 4. Then, circle the best answers to 5 and 6. Then, answer 7 on the 4 lines. The answer key covers the questions on page 2.

Yes, both. We made it for 4th 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 a real topic, such as a person, a place, an animal or an event. Some sheets use an opinion article, letter or diary by a made-up writer, and each one is labeled made up on the page while the facts in it are real.

The five text structures are description, sequence (time order), compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem and solution. The text structure sheets use four of them, with time order texts on the Golden Gate Bridge and the Space Needle, compare and contrast texts on frogs and toads and on comets and asteroids, cause and effect texts on the Model T and penicillin, and problem and solution texts on lost pets and wildlife crossings. Clue words like first, both, because and to fix help students tell them apart.

A firsthand account is told by someone who was there, using words like I and we, and it shares what they saw and felt. A secondhand account is told by someone who was not there, such as an encyclopedia writer, and it usually gives more facts and numbers. On 12 sheets students compare a made-up firsthand letter or diary, such as a visitor's letter from the first Ferris wheel in 1893 or a child's diary from the first World Series in 1903, with an encyclopedia article about the same event.

Yes. All 122 nonfiction sheets have an answer key. On the newer sheets, the key gives a model answer for every chart box and written item and lists other answers the passage supports.

The 102 newer nonfiction sheets have a passage of about 230 to 310 words on page one and 6 to 9 questions on the next page, with a chart, chain, timeline, table, map or bar graph to fill in or read. The firsthand account and paired text sheets add a second text on its own page, so they run three pages. The 40 earlier sheets, 20 nonfiction and 20 fiction, pair a passage of about 200 to 260 words with a page of multiple choice and short written questions.

The nonfiction sheets practice main idea and summarizing (RI.4.2), explaining events and steps (RI.4.3), text structure (RI.4.5), firsthand and secondhand accounts (RI.4.6), reading timelines, tables, maps and graphs (RI.4.7), reasons and evidence (RI.4.8) and combining two texts on one topic (RI.4.9). The fiction sheets practice theme, character feelings, inference and similes (RL.4.1, RL.4.2).

Have students read the passage once for the gist, then again with a pencil to underline clues. Then answer the questions and check against the key. Use a nonfiction passage one day and a story the next, so students practice both text types.