Thanksgiving Dinner Reading Comprehension Worksheet

Reading comprehension is the skill of reading a story closely and then showing what you understood, and this thanksgiving dinner reading comprehension worksheet gives 2nd graders a warm, familiar story to practice on. Second grade readers are moving from sounding out words to holding a whole story in their heads: who the characters are, what they did, in what order, and why it mattered. A short narrative about two cousins helping to carry a heavy bowl to the Thanksgiving table gives them characters to track, a small problem to follow, and details worth remembering. Because the setting is one children already know, all of their attention can go to the reading itself rather than to figuring out an unfamiliar world.

This 2nd grade reading comprehension worksheet is a three page, no prep printable. Page one holds the original story, Thanksgiving Dinner, with a full color illustration of the two cousins carrying the potatoes. Page two holds the questions: four multiple choice items that ask students to fill in the bubble beside the best answer, and one written response that asks them to explain how the cousins worked together and to point to a part of the story that shows how they know. Page three is the complete answer key. Read the story aloud together first, then let students reread it on their own before they answer, and encourage them to go back into the text to check each answer instead of guessing from memory.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• Answer key
• 1 original 2nd grade reading passage with a full color illustration
• 4 multiple choice comprehension questions and 1 written response question

There are three reasons this thanksgiving dinner reading comprehension worksheet helps children learn. First, the passage is written and measured at a true second grade reading level, so students can decode it independently and spend their thinking on meaning instead of on hard words. Second, the questions move up a ladder: some ask students to recall a detail, one asks them to figure out why something happened, and the last one asks them to explain an idea in their own words. That range is exactly what reading tests ask for later on. Third, the written response requires text evidence, which teaches children the habit of proving an answer from the page rather than from a guess.

Teachers and parents can stretch this activity in several easy ways. Ask children to retell the story in order using the words first, next, then, and last, or to act out the moment when the cousins carry the bowl across the kitchen. Have them draw the part of the story they liked best and write one sentence underneath it. You can also invite students to write their own short paragraph about a time they helped with a family meal, then trade papers and answer one question about a partner’s story. For a quick partner review, one child reads a question aloud while the other finds the sentence in the passage that answers it.

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