Summarise the Text is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on summarising a story without retelling all of it, aligned to Common Core standard RL.4.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 17 of them with 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 1 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.
17 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.
Summarise the Text
RL.4.2
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. Summarise this story.
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. Summarise this myth.
LessonPrint · RL.4.2 · Set 1 · free to copy for classroom use
Answer key — Summarise the Text
Set 1. Prints on its own sheet.
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.
2.1. 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.
Questions about Summarise the Text
What does the Summarise the Text worksheet cover?
It practises summarising a story without retelling all of it — 2 questions for Grade 4, all on Common Core RL.4.2: Work out the theme from the details, then summarise the text. The instruction to pupils is “Read the text, then answer the questions”, and the answer key follows on the next sheet.
Which Common Core standard does Summarise the Text practise?
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2 — RL.4.2, in the Reading: Literature domain for Grade 4. The published standard reads: “Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.” The worksheet assesses that standard rather than a paraphrase of it.
What age or grade is this worksheet for?
Summarise the Text is written for Grade 4, typically ages 9-10. It is one of the sheets on RL.4.2, so it suits any pupil working at that standard — including older pupils revisiting it and younger ones working ahead.
Does Summarise the Text come with an answer key?
Yes. All 2 answers are generated from the same problems as the questions, so the key cannot drift out of step with the sheet. It starts on a fresh sheet of paper, after the questions, so it is not handed out with the class by accident.
How many different versions of Summarise the Text can I print?
25 versions, of which 17 ask genuinely different questions — this skill does not have 25 distinct questions to give, so the rest reorder them and no two pupils still share a paper. Set 1 downloads all 25 as one PDF.
Is Summarise the Text free to print and photocopy?
Yes. Summarise the Text, its answer key and its 25 versions are free to print and photocopy for your own class, with no account, no email capture and no subscription at the download step. Please do not resell them or republish them as your own.
More practice for RL.4.2
Work out the theme from the details, then summarise the text.