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Reading a Grade 3 Story is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on reading a whole Grade 3 text and answering across it, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.10. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask 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 12 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Reading a Grade 3 Story

RL.3.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Violin in the Loft

Nobody in our family plays anything. So the violin in the loft was a mystery for eleven years. Then Great-Aunt Sylvie came for Christmas and saw the case on the table. She went very quiet. "That was my brother's," she said. "He played in a café in Marseille before the war." She opened it. Three strings had gone, and the bridge lay loose in the bottom of the case. She did not play it. She held it under her chin for about ten seconds, put it back, and closed the lid. Then she asked for more potatoes and did not mention it again.

  1. 1. "She went very quiet" — what does this really tell you?
  2. 2. What is the central message of this story?
  3. 3. Why might Sylvie have put the violin back without playing it?
  4. 4. How long had the violin been a mystery?
2.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. Where did he put the letters once they came back?
  2. 2. What is the central message of this story?
  3. 3. Describe Mr Ellis's motivation for writing letters he could not send.
  4. 4. "The day she is really gone" — is his sister dead? What does he mean?

LessonPrint · RL.3.10 · Set 12 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 3 Story

Set 12. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Not just that she stopped talking, but that something had affected her. 2. Some feelings are shown by what a person does not say — Sylvie held the violin and asked for potatoes. 3. The story does not say; the broken strings, or the memory of her brother, or both. 4. Eleven years.
  2. 2.1. In a shoebox. 2. Keeping going matters, and somebody else may finish what you started — Ada found the address. 3. Writing kept his sister present for him — stopping would have meant losing her. 4. No. He means she would be gone from his life, which is different from being unreachable by post.

More practice for RL.3.10

Read and understand harder Grade 2-3 stories, plays and poems on your own.

Teaching this next? Reading Grade 3 Literature is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.10 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.