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A Speaker's Claims and Support is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on summarising claims and explaining what supports each, aligned to Common Core standard SL.5.3. 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 18 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.

A Speaker's Claims and Support

SL.5.3

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

How a Vaccine Teaches the Body

Your immune system learns. Meet a disease once and, if you survive it, you are usually protected afterwards. A vaccine gives the lesson without the disease. The method is old. In eighteenth-century Britain, milkmaids were known not to catch smallpox. Edward Jenner reasoned that the cowpox they caught from cattle was protecting them, and in 1796 he tested it on a boy — a procedure no ethics committee would permit now. A modern vaccine shows the immune system a harmless piece of a pathogen: a killed virus, a weakened one, or a single protein from its surface. The body makes antibodies against that piece, and keeps the recipe. Because the recipe is kept, the real pathogen is met by a defence already in place. There is a second effect. If enough people are immune, the pathogen cannot find a chain of hosts, so those who cannot be vaccinated are protected too. That effect fails below a threshold, which is why coverage rather than availability is what matters.

  1. 1. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
  2. 2. The text makes two claims. Identify which evidence supports which.
  3. 3. Quote accurately the words that state why coverage matters more than availability.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Mill: The Local Paper, June 1980

Whately's Mill closed on Friday with the loss of 214 jobs, the largest single closure in the town since the war. The mill had run since 1868. At its height it employed more than 600. Mr Whately declined to say when he had known the closure was certain. The Chamber of Commerce has called for a public inquiry; the union has called the closure "predictable for two years". The council says a retraining fund will open in September. Four other textile mills within twenty miles have closed since 1975. Nobody the paper spoke to expected the site to be used for textiles again.

  1. 1. Quote accurately the union's description of the closure.
  2. 2. Two organisations react. Identify which reason belongs to which.
  3. 3. What is this report's purpose, and how does it differ from the accounts?

LessonPrint · SL.5.3 · Set 18 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — A Speaker's Claims and Support

Set 18. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. To explain the mechanism and why coverage matters — the last paragraph is the point the rest builds to. 2. The claim that vaccines teach the immune system is supported by the antibody recipe; the claim about collective protection is supported by the chain-of-hosts threshold. 3. "That effect fails below a threshold, which is why coverage rather than availability is what matters."
  2. 2.1. "predictable for two years". 2. The Chamber of Commerce wants an inquiry; the union claims the closure was predictable for two years. 3. To record what happened and who said what — it reports the dispute rather than taking a side.

More practice for SL.5.3

Summarise a speaker's claims and say what supports each one.

Teaching this next? Summarising a Speaker's Argument is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 5 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to SL.5.3 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.