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Paraphrase What You Heard is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on putting part of a text into your own words, aligned to Common Core standard SL.4.2. 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 19 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.

Paraphrase What You Heard

SL.4.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What a Beaver Dam Does

A beaver does not build a dam for shelter. It builds one to make a pond, and it lives in a lodge in the pond. The dam raises the water so the lodge entrance stays underwater. A predator that cannot swim cannot get in. But the pond does far more than protect one family. Behind a dam, water slows, and slow water drops the silt it carries. Over years this builds rich wet ground. That ground holds water in a drought and holds it back in a flood. It supports plants, insects, amphibians and birds that were not there before. Where beavers have been reintroduced, the number of species in a valley typically rises within five years.

  1. 1. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
  2. 2. What keeps a predator out of the lodge?
  3. 3. How soon does species number typically rise after beavers return?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Accidental Photograph

In 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen was working with a covered tube in a darkened room when he noticed a screen across the laboratory glowing. Something was passing through the cover and crossing the room. He did not know what it was, so he called it X — the unknown. He spent seven weeks alone in the laboratory testing it. He put wood, rubber and metal in the way. Metal stopped it; the rest did not. Then he asked his wife to put her hand between the tube and a photographic plate. The picture showed the bones of her hand and her wedding ring. Within a year, X-rays were being used in hospitals. Röntgen refused to patent them.

  1. 1. Why did he call them X-rays?
  2. 2. Which material stopped the rays?
  3. 3. In what year did Röntgen notice the glow?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 19 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Paraphrase What You Heard

Set 19. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. A beaver dam changes a whole valley, not just one family — supported by the silt, the wet ground and the rise in species. 2. The entrance stays underwater because the dam raises the water. 3. Within five years.
  2. 2.1. Because X meant the unknown — he did not know what they were. 2. Metal. 3. 1895.

More practice for SL.4.2

Put part of what you heard or saw into your own words.

Teaching this next? Paraphrasing What You Heard is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to SL.4.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.