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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 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 24 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 Story

RL.4.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Clock That Was Wrong

The church clock in our village had been four minutes fast for thirty years. Everybody knew. The bus timetable was written around it. Weddings started on it. My grandmother set her oven by it, four minutes back. Then the council paid a specialist to come and correct it. He was there two days. When he left, the clock was exact. Within a month, three people had missed the bus, the choir arrived late twice, and my grandmother burned a cake she had made two hundred times. The vicar wrote to the council. In March they set it four minutes fast again.

  1. 1. Summarise this story.
  2. 2. Describe the grandmother from the details given.
  3. 3. Who was paid to correct it?
  4. 4. How long had the clock been four minutes fast?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus was the finest craftsman in the world, and King Minos kept him prisoner because of it. He and his son Icarus were shut in a tower above the sea. Daedalus watched the gulls for a summer. Then he gathered feathers, laid them in rows from short to long, and bound them with wax and thread into two pairs of wings. "Fly in the middle," he told Icarus. "Too low and the sea spray soaks the feathers. Too high and the sun softens the wax." They rose from the tower together. For a while Icarus followed exactly. Then the boy found that he could climb. He forgot the tower, the sea, the warning. He went up, and up, until the wax ran and the feathers came away one at a time and the sky let go of him. Daedalus flew on alone. He never made anything again.

  1. 1. Summarise this myth.
  2. 2. What do Daedalus's actions after the fall tell you about him?
  3. 3. Why did King Minos keep Daedalus prisoner?
  4. 4. Describe Icarus in depth, using specific details from the text.

LessonPrint · RL.4.10 · Set 24 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 4 Story

Set 24. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. A village clock was four minutes fast for thirty years and everything was built around it; correcting it caused chaos, so they set it fast again. 2. Practised and precise — she set her oven four minutes back for years and had made the cake two hundred times. 3. A specialist, paid by the council. 4. Thirty years.
  2. 2.1. Imprisoned by Minos, Daedalus built wings of feather and wax, warned Icarus to fly in the middle, and lost him when the boy flew too high. 2. "He never made anything again" — his skill was what cost him his son, and he gave it up. 3. Because he was the finest craftsman in the world. 4. He begins obedient — "Icarus followed exactly" — then, discovering he can climb, forgets the tower, the sea and the warning.

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.