Author’s Purpose Worksheet

Every text a child reads was written on purpose. An author sits down to entertain us with a story, to persuade us to think or do something, or to inform us with facts. Learning to name that reason turns a young reader into a thinking reader, and this Author’s Purpose Worksheet gives 2nd graders four short passages to practice on. Instead of guessing from a single clue word, students weigh the whole passage — is it a made-up story, an opinion aimed at the reader, or a set of true facts? That is exactly the reasoning the reading standards ask second graders to do, and it is the reasoning this author’s purpose worksheet builds one passage at a time.

This 2nd grade author’s purpose worksheet is ready to print and use with no preparation. Each of the four cards holds a friendly watercolor picture, a short passage written at a second-grade reading level, and three fill-in-the-bubble choices: to entertain, to persuade, or to inform. Students read the passage, think about why the author wrote it, and fill in one bubble. The passages cover a silly duck in red boots, how bread is made, a reason to read every night, and a kite dancing in the wind, so all three purposes are practiced on the same page. Use it as morning work, as a small-group warm-up, as a quick check before a longer reading lesson, or as homework that a parent can score in a minute using the included key.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• Answer key
• 4 illustrated passages with fill-in-the-bubble author’s purpose choices

There are three reasons this author’s purpose worksheet helps children learn the skill. First, it keeps the passages short, so a second grader spends their energy on thinking about the author rather than on decoding a long text. Second, every card offers the same three choices, so students learn the vocabulary of entertain, persuade, and inform by using it four times in a row instead of meeting it once. Third, the four passages are deliberately different in kind — a story, a set of facts, an opinion, and a playful description — so children have to compare and decide rather than fall into a pattern. The answer key makes it easy to talk through any answer a child misses.

Teachers and parents can stretch this skill far beyond the page. Read the back cover of three library books and sort them into entertain, persuade, and inform piles. Hunt for purposes around the house: a cereal box, a birthday card, a recipe, a bedtime story. Ask your child to write two sentences about the same pet — one to make you laugh and one to teach you a fact — then name the purpose of each. Play a listening game in the car where you read a short ad or a news headline aloud and everyone votes on the purpose. Sing the Author’s Purpose Song together to lock the three words into memory, then come back to the worksheet and see how much faster the choices feel.

Related Resources

• Identifying Author’s Purpose Worksheet
• Author’s Purpose Activity
• Why Was it Written? Author’s Purpose Activity
• Author’s Purpose Song (Have Fun Teaching on YouTube)