The Message and How It Is Carried is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on naming the message and the details that convey it, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 20 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 5 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.
Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 20 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.
The Message and How It Is Carried
RL.3.2
NameDate
Read the text, then answer the questions.
1.Read the text, then answer the questions.
Conker
First stanza:
Inside the green and spiny case,
packed in a lining soft as silk,
it waits all summer in the dark
and grows the colour of stained milk.
Second stanza:
Then autumn cracks the case in two.
It falls. It hits the path and shines
so hard and bright and newly made
you cannot walk past it. Nobody can.
Third stanza:
By Sunday it is dull and cracked
and lighter than it was before —
a small brown stone inside a pocket,
and no one wants it any more.
1. What is this poem really about?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.
The Fox and the Well
A fox leaned too far over a well and fell in. The water was shallow, but the walls were smooth and far too high to climb.
He was still sitting there when a goat came by and looked down.
"Is the water good?" asked the goat.
"The best I have ever tasted," said the fox. "Come down and see."
The goat jumped in. The fox climbed onto the goat's back, sprang out, and trotted off.
"Wait!" called the goat. "How do I get out?"
"You should have thought about that," said the fox, "before you jumped."
1. What is the moral of this fable?
LessonPrint · RL.3.2 · Set 5 · free to copy for classroom use
Answer key — The Message and How It Is Carried
Set 5. Prints on its own sheet.
1.1. How quickly a conker goes from something nobody can walk past to a dull stone in a pocket.
2.1. Look before you leap — the goat jumped in without asking how he would get out.
Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.