Small Things Add Up Reading Comprehension Worksheet

Most third graders can tell you that a penny is worth one cent. Far fewer can tell you what happens when you keep one, and then another, for a whole school year. That gap is what this Small Things Add Up reading comprehension worksheet is built on. Jasmine picks a warm, scratched penny off the sidewalk; her friend Miles tells her it is not worth much and offers it to her. She takes it, drops it into an empty jam jar that night, and keeps adding whatever she finds until the jar is too heavy to lift with one hand. The story never lectures. It simply shows a small amount becoming a real one, and lets the reader do the arithmetic in their head.

This Small Things Add Up reading comprehension worksheet is a three-page, no-prep printable. Page one carries the illustrated story, page two carries the questions, and the last page is the answer key. Students read the 223-word passage, then answer four multiple-choice questions with three fill-in-the-bubble choices each, plus one written response that asks them to trace how Miles changes his mind. The multiple-choice items are drawn from four different paragraphs, so a child cannot answer them from the opening alone, and one of them asks for the exact amount the coin machine counted.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• Answer key
• A 223-word original story about saving coins, 4 multiple-choice questions and 1 written response

Three things make this 3rd grade money worksheet worth the twenty minutes it takes. First, it teaches money sense through a story rather than through a page of coin drills, so the idea a child takes away is about habit and patience, not just about counting. Second, the passage is measured on grade rather than guessed at, which means the sentence length and the vocabulary match what a third grader meets on a reading assessment. Third, the written response asks students to track a change across the whole text and back it with two details, which is exactly the kind of evidence-based answer the standards ask for.

Ways to Use It

• Ask students to predict, before reading, whether the jar will hold more or less than ten dollars.
• Have students underline every coin named in the story, then list the coins in order of value.
• Use the written response as a short paired-writing task before students answer on their own.
• Start a classroom jar and have students estimate its total once a month.

Related Resources

• Lost Money Reading Comprehension Worksheet
• Found Money Reading Comprehension Worksheet
• Counting Money Worksheet
• Story Elements Song