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Literal or Not? is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on telling words that mean what they say from words that do not, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.4. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 24 of them with different questions, so no two pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 20 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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One paper per pupil

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 24 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.

Literal or Not?

RL.3.4

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Last Letter

Every Thursday for six years, Mr Ellis posted a letter to his sister in Canada. Then the letters started coming back. Address unknown. He kept writing them anyway. He put them in a shoebox instead of the postbox. When his neighbour Ada asked why, he said, "Because the day I stop writing is the day she is really gone." Ada went home and looked up the town on a map. It took her three weeks and eleven phone calls to find the new address. The shoebox held ninety-two letters. They posted them all on the same day.

  1. 1. What does "Address unknown" tell a reader, and what does it not tell them?
  2. 2. "The day she is really gone" — is his sister dead? What does he mean?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why Anansi Has Thin Legs

Long ago Anansi the spider had eight fat legs, and a nose for other people's cooking. One morning he smelled beans at Rabbit's house. "Tie a web to my leg," he told Rabbit, "and tug it when the beans are ready." Rabbit agreed. Then Anansi smelled fish at Monkey's, and yams at Guinea Fowl's, and soup at Warthog's. To each he said the same thing. By noon he had eight webs tied to eight legs. At noon every pot was ready at once. Eight tugs came together. The webs pulled so hard that Anansi's legs stretched thin as thread — and he got no dinner at all. They have been thin ever since.

  1. 1. "Thin as thread" — is this literal or nonliteral? What does it mean?
  2. 2. "A nose for other people's cooking" — what does this really mean?

LessonPrint · RL.3.4 · Set 20 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Literal or Not?

Set 20. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It tells you the post office could not deliver; it does not tell you what happened to her. 2. No. He means she would be gone from his life, which is different from being unreachable by post.
  2. 2.1. Nonliteral. It compares his legs to thread to show how very thin they became. 2. It means he was very good at finding out where food was, not that his nose was unusual.

More practice for RL.3.4

Tell when words mean what they say and when they do not.

Teaching this next? Literal and Non-Literal Language is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.4 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.