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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 23 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 Wrong Bus

Halim was two stops past the school before he looked up. The bus was going the other way. He had got on at the same shelter, in the same rain, and never checked the number. His stomach dropped. He thought about crying and decided against it, because it would not help. He read the route map above the window. He worked out that the 41 came back the same way. He rang the bell, got off, crossed at the lights, and waited eleven minutes for the 41. He was twenty minutes late. Mrs Achebe asked what happened. "I got the wrong bus," said Halim, "and then I got the right one."

  1. 1. How do Halim's actions contribute to the sequence of events?
  2. 2. How late was he?
  3. 3. What is the central message of this story?
  4. 4. Halim's last line has two meanings at once. What are they?
2.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. The violin was "a mystery for eleven years". Is that literal?
  2. 2. Whose violin was it?
  3. 3. What is the central message of this story?
  4. 4. Why might Sylvie have put the violin back without playing it?

LessonPrint · RL.3.10 · Set 23 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 3 Story

Set 23. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Because he read the map and worked out the 41, he got himself back rather than staying lost. 2. Twenty minutes. 3. A mistake is something you can work your way out of. 4. Literally he took two buses; it also means he made a mistake and then put it right.
  2. 2.1. Partly — nobody knew whose it was, so it was genuinely unexplained, described as a mystery. 2. Great-Aunt Sylvie's brother's. 3. Some feelings are shown by what a person does not say — Sylvie held the violin and asked for potatoes. 4. The story does not say; the broken strings, or the memory of her brother, or both.

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.