Reading a Grade 4 Story is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on reading a whole Grade 4 text and answering across it, aligned to Common Core standard RL.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 students in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 14 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

One paper per student

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Reading a Grade 4 Story

RL.4.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Low Water

Stanza one: Twice a day the sea walks out and leaves the harbor standing, the boats set down on their own keels like birds that have stopped landing. Stanza two: The mud shines. Old anchors show, a bicycle, a broken chain, the whole forgotten underneath made briefly plain. Stanza three: Then, without a sound at all, it turns and starts to come. The bicycle goes under first. The harbor lifts. The boats go dumb.

1. How often does the sea go out?
2. What goes under first when the tide turns?
3. What three things are showing in the mud?
4. Summarize what happens across this poem.

2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Lost Ledger

Mr. Kaur ran the store on the corner for forty-one years and never used a cash register. He kept a ledger. Every debt in the village was in it, in pencil, and every settlement crossed out. Nobody ever asked to see it. Nobody ever queried it. When he retired he handed the ledger to his daughter, who was taking over. She found eleven debts outstanding, some six years old, totaling more than she took in a two weeks. She thought about it for a week. Then she went through the book, tore out those pages, and started a new one with a card machine on the counter. She never told him. He never asked.

1. What does Mr. Kaur's ledger tell you about how he ran the store?
2. Determine a theme of this story and support it from the text.
3. Describe the daughter in depth, using details from the text.
4. Summarize this story.

LessonPrint · RL.4.10 · Set 14 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 4 Story

Set 14. Prints on its own sheet.

1.1. Twice a day. 2. The bicycle. 3. Old anchors, a bicycle and a broken chain. 4. The tide goes out twice a day and grounds the boats, reveals the trash in the mud, then returns silently and lifts the harbor.
2.1. On trust — pencil, no cash register, no queries in forty-one years. 2. Ending something kindly can mean saying nothing — she tore out the pages and "never told him." 3. Deliberate and private — she thinks for a week, tears out the pages, installs a card machine, and never mentions it. 4. Mr. Kaur ran his store on a pencil ledger for forty-one years; his daughter inherited eleven old debts, wrote them off, and never told him.

More practice for RL.4.10

Read and understand Grade 4-5 stories, plays and poems by the year's end.

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

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.4.10 of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.