The Catching Tree Reading Comprehension Worksheet

This The Catching Tree Reading Comprehension Worksheet gives third grade students an original non-fiction passage about something every child has seen and few have explained: the big tree in the yard that always seems to be holding on to something. The text follows the wind as it lifts leaves, seeds, and scraps of paper, then shows why a wide crown stops some of them. One trunk splits into limbs, the limbs split into branches, and the thinnest twigs spread out until the whole tree works like a net. Air passes straight through the gaps, but a kite string does not.

The sheet is built for independent work. Students read the 232-word passage on page one, answer four multiple choice questions on page two, and finish with a written response that has to gather two separate ideas out of the text. A complete answer key is the final page, with the short response modeled line by line, so a teacher can score the page in seconds. This the catching tree reading comprehension worksheet fits a guided reading group, a literacy center, a sub folder, an Arbor Day lesson, or a science unit on trees and weather.

What’s Included

• An original 232-word non-fiction passage written to the third grade band
• A full-color illustration of a broad shade tree holding a lost kite that matches the text
• Four multiple choice questions covering comparison, cause and effect, detail, and reasoning
• One written response item that asks for two details from the passage
• A complete answer key on the final page
• A print-ready PDF sized for standard letter paper

Three Reasons This Helps Kids

• The comparison does the teaching. A tree described as a net gives students a picture they can hold, which is exactly how good non-fiction explains a new idea.
• The questions reach past recall. One item traces a cause from the gaps in a crown to a snagged kite string, and the written response asks students to gather evidence about rain, soil, and wind.
• It connects reading to science. Students meet real ideas about weather and trees, so the same page serves a reading block and an Arbor Day or earth science lesson.

Ideas For Teachers And Parents

• Have students underline the sentence that compares the tree to a net before they answer question one.
• Walk outside and look up into one tree, then list everything the branches are holding that did not grow there.
• Ask students to draw the path of one seed from the wind to a twig, labeling each step from the passage.
• Use this 3rd grade reading comprehension worksheet as a model, then let students write a short passage about another job a tree does.

Related Resources

• Falling Leaves Reading Comprehension Worksheet
• Raining Cats and Dogs Reading Comprehension Worksheet
• Nervous about Third Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheet
• Weather Song