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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 9 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. Why does a beaver build a dam?
  2. 2. Summarise this text.
  3. 3. How soon does species number typically rise after beavers return?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Longitude Problem

A ship's latitude — how far north or south it is — can be found from the height of the sun at noon. Sailors could do that for centuries. Longitude, how far east or west, was the problem. It has no natural marker. The solution was known in principle: compare the time on board with the time at a fixed place. The Earth turns fifteen degrees an hour, so every hour of difference is fifteen degrees of longitude. That required a clock that stayed accurate on a rolling, salty, temperature-swinging ship. No such clock existed. John Harrison, a carpenter, spent forty-three years building four. The fourth, finished in 1759, was the size of a large pocket watch and lost five seconds in eighty-one days at sea.

  1. 1. How long did Harrison spend on the problem?
  2. 2. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
  3. 3. How could sailors find their latitude?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 9 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Paraphrase What You Heard

Set 9. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. 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. Within five years.
  2. 2.1. Forty-three years. 2. Finding longitude was a clockmaking problem, not an astronomy one — supported by the fifteen-degree rule and Harrison's watch. 3. From the height of the sun at noon.

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.