This Autobiography Worksheet helps 3rd graders tell an autobiography from a biography, then plan their own life story in first-person sentences. Answer key included for fast, no-prep writing practice.
This real life narratives worksheet helps 3rd graders plan a true story from a biography, with a main idea, four events in order, and a closing statement that ties it all together.
This Donald Trump Reading Comprehension Worksheet gives 3rd graders a short, factual biography and seven text-based questions. An answer key is included, so students can build nonfiction reading skills with almost no prep.
Using About Me Mobile Activity, students can create a mobile to introduce themselves and share important information about themselves at the beginning of a new school year!
Real people, real stories
Third graders learn that a biography is a true story of a real person's life written by someone else, while an autobiography is written by the person themselves. They read about inventors, leaders, athletes and artists, and look for the big events in each life, usually told in time order. They think about the person's challenges and how they made a difference. The click is when kids realize their own life is a story worth telling too.
Biographies connect reading, history and writing. These moves bring real people to life.
Before reading biographies, kids write a short autobiography with three big events from their own life. It teaches the structure from the inside out.
Why it works: kids understand an idea best when they touch it, then draw it, then write it, the order the U.S. Department of Education recommends for elementary math.
Try it withAutobiography WorksheetWorksheetsOpen it →Read a short biography passage about a U.S. president together and answer questions about the key events in order. Talk about which events mattered most and why.
Why it works: pulling an answer out of memory makes it stick far better than rereading it, one of the strongest findings in learning research (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013).
Try it withDonald Trump Reading Comprehension WorksheetAssessmentsOpen it →Read a short real-life narrative and model how to find clues that it's true: real names, dates and places. Kids then check other texts for the same clues.
Why it works: showing first, practicing together, then letting kids try alone is the "gradual release" model teachers have relied on for decades (Pearson and Gallagher, 1983).
Try it withReal Life Narratives WorksheetWorksheetsOpen it →Projects that make kids proud to share real stories.
Teacher favorites right now: Autobiography Worksheet, Real Life Narratives Worksheet and Donald Trump Reading Comprehension Worksheet.
A biography is a true story about a real person's life written by someone else. It usually tells the big events of their life in order.
A biography is written by someone else. An autobiography is written by the person about their own life. The prefix auto- means self.
When and where the person was born, important events in their life, challenges they faced and how they made a difference. A picture and a timeline are great extras.
Let them pick someone they are curious about, like an athlete, scientist or artist. Interest makes a big difference in how much they read.
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