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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 25 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. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
  2. 2. The text says lichens are a living measure of pollution. What reason is given?
  3. 3. What is lichenometry?
  4. 4. What two organisms make up a lichen?
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. How far behind London was Bristol's noon?
  2. 2. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
  3. 3. The text says local time was no problem before the railways. What reason is given?
  4. 4. What was the single time called before it became law?

LessonPrint · RI.4.10 · Set 25 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 4 Fact Text

Set 25. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. 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. They absorb whatever is in the air, so they disappear where the air is dirty. 3. Using lichen growth rates to date rock surfaces. 4. A fungus and an alga.
  2. 2.1. About ten minutes. 2. The railways forced Britain onto one clock — supported by the ten-minute gap, the timetable problem and the 1880 law. 3. The fastest thing on the road was a horse, so a ten-minute difference did not matter. 4. Railway time.

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.