Digesting Food Health and Fitness Reading Comprehension Worksheet

Every lunch takes a long trip through the body, and the Digesting Food Health and Fitness Reading Comprehension Worksheet follows it the whole way. Students read an original non-fiction passage that starts with a sandwich, an apple and a glass of milk on a plate, then travels with that meal through the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine and the large intestine. Along the way the passage defines the words a fourth grader needs, in the sentence that introduces them, so digestion, saliva, esophagus and nutrients arrive with their meaning attached rather than as vocabulary to memorize.

The passage runs across two pages, which is the on grade length for fourth grade reading, and then the questions ask students to go back into the text for the answer. Four multiple choice questions cover a supporting detail, a word defined in context, a cause and effect relationship, and the main idea of the whole piece. A written response asks students to explain what the stomach does to a sandwich and why the stomach can do it safely, which means naming two separate ideas from the passage and putting them together in their own sentences. A complete answer key follows, with the sample response written out.

What’s Included

• A two page original non-fiction passage about how the body digests food
• An illustrated scene of the meal the passage describes
• Four multiple choice questions and one written response with ruled lines
• A full answer key, including a sample written response

Three reasons this 4th grade health and nutrition worksheet helps kids. First, it teaches a science topic through reading, so students practice pulling information out of a text instead of a diagram they only have to label. Second, the questions are written to different skills, so a student who can find a detail still has to think harder for the main idea. Third, the subject is one every child already owns. Everybody eats lunch, and a passage about your own stomach is easier to stay with than a passage about somewhere far away.

Ideas for Teachers and Parents

Read the passage aloud once before students read it on their own, and stop at each body part it names to let them point to it. Ask students to retell the trip in order, from the first bite to the last step, and you have a free sequencing lesson. The written response makes a good partner task: have two students draft an answer together, then compare it against the sample in the key. The Digesting Food Health and Fitness Reading Comprehension Worksheet also works as a quick reading check partway through a health unit.

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