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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 4 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 Coral Reef Is

A coral reef looks like rock and is built by animals. A coral polyp is a soft creature the size of a pinhead. It draws calcium from the sea water and builds a hard cup around itself. Millions of polyps, cup upon cup, become a reef. Inside each polyp live tiny algae. The algae make food from sunlight and pass most of it to the polyp. In exchange they get shelter and the polyp's waste. Neither could build a reef alone. When the water gets too warm, the polyps expel the algae. Without them the coral turns white and starves. That is what bleaching means. A reef takes centuries to build and can bleach in a single hot summer.

  1. 1. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
  2. 2. How big is a coral polyp?
  3. 3. What happens when the water gets too warm?
2.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. Why does a beaver build a dam?
  2. 2. Summarise this text.
  3. 3. What keeps a predator out of the lodge?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 4 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Paraphrase What You Heard

Set 4. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. A reef is built by a partnership of two organisms — supported by the exchange between polyp and algae and by what bleaching is. 2. The size of a pinhead. 3. The polyps expel the algae, and the coral turns white and starves.
  2. 2.1. To make a pond — it lives in a lodge in the pond. 2. A beaver dams a river to make a pond with an underwater lodge entrance, and the slowed water builds wet ground that buffers drought and flood and raises species numbers. 3. The entrance stays underwater because the dam raises the water.

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.

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