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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 23 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.

Lichen

A lichen is not one organism. It is a fungus and an alga living as one body. The fungus provides the structure and holds water. The alga photosynthesises and makes sugar. Separated, the fungus starves and the alga dries out. Because it needs no soil, a lichen can grow on bare rock, on gravestones and on the roofs of cars that have not moved for a decade. Lichens grow extremely slowly — some crustose species less than a millimetre a year. Scientists use that rate to date rock surfaces, a method called lichenometry. Lichens also absorb whatever is in the air. Where the air is dirty, they disappear, which makes them a living measure of pollution.

  1. 1. What two organisms make up a lichen?
  2. 2. How slowly can a crustose lichen grow?
  3. 3. What overall structure does this text use?
  4. 4. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
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 many degrees does the Earth turn in an hour?
  2. 2. How could sailors find their latitude?
  3. 3. What overall structure does this text use?
  4. 4. The text says no such clock existed. What reasons are given?

LessonPrint · RI.4.10 · Set 23 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 4 Fact Text

Set 23. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. A fungus and an alga. 2. Less than a millimetre a year. 3. It defines, then explains the partnership, then gives two consequences: dating rock and measuring pollution. 4. A lichen is a partnership that can live where nothing else can — supported by the bare rock, the slow growth and the pollution sensitivity.
  2. 2.1. Fifteen. 2. From the height of the sun at noon. 3. Problem and solution — the difficulty, the principle, the obstacle, and Harrison's answer. 4. A ship rolls, is salty, and swings in temperature — all of which upset a clock.

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.