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Reading a Grade 4 Fact Text is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on reading a whole information text and answering across it, aligned to Common Core standard RI.4.10. 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 18 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 4 Fact Text

RI.4.10

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. What overall structure does this text use?
  2. 2. What keeps a predator out of the lodge?
  3. 3. How soon does species number typically rise after beavers return?
  4. 4. Why does a beaver build a dam?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why Clocks Agree

Until the 1840s, every British town kept its own time, set by the sun. Noon in Bristol was about ten minutes after noon in London. That was no problem while the fastest thing on the road was a horse. The railways changed it. A timetable cannot work if every station measures noon differently, and trains sharing a track need to agree about when. So the railway companies imposed London time on their whole network. People called it railway time. Some towns kept two minute hands on the town clock for years, one local and one railway. In 1880 Parliament made a single time legal across the country. The sun had been overruled by the timetable.

  1. 1. When did Parliament make a single time legal?
  2. 2. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
  3. 3. What was the single time called before it became law?
  4. 4. How far behind London was Bristol's noon?

LessonPrint · RI.4.10 · Set 18 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 4 Fact Text

Set 18. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Cause and effect, widening from the lodge to the valley. 2. The entrance stays underwater because the dam raises the water. 3. Within five years. 4. To make a pond — it lives in a lodge in the pond.
  2. 2.1. 1880. 2. The railways forced Britain onto one clock — supported by the ten-minute gap, the timetable problem and the 1880 law. 3. Railway time. 4. About ten minutes.

More practice for RI.4.10

Read and understand Grade 4-5 information texts by the year's end.

Teaching this next? Reading Grade 4 Informational Texts is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.4.10 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.