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Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on reading a whole argued text and answering across it, aligned to Common Core standard RI.5.10. 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 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.

Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text

RI.5.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why the Thames Froze

Between 1309 and 1814 the Thames froze hard enough to walk on at least twenty-four times. Since 1814 it has not once. The usual explanation is that the climate has warmed. That is part of it, and not most of it. Old London Bridge had nineteen arches on wide stone piers. The piers took up so much of the channel that the bridge acted as a weir, slowing the water upstream almost to a standstill. Still water freezes; moving water does not. The river was also shallower and wider then, spreading over land that has since been embanked. Shallow water loses heat faster. Old London Bridge was demolished in 1831. The embankments were built between 1862 and 1874. The river that flows through London now is narrower, deeper and faster than the one that froze — and it would not freeze in a colder winter than any of those.

  1. 1. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
  2. 2. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
  3. 3. How many times did the Thames freeze between 1309 and 1814?
  4. 4. How many arches did Old London Bridge have?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What Happened to the Textile Towns

Between 1965 and 1990 the British textile industry lost roughly four fifths of its jobs. Three causes are usually given, and they are not equally weighted. Cost is the one most often cited. Spinning and weaving are labour-intensive, and wages in the countries that took the work were a fraction of British wages. This explains a great deal. Investment matters too. Much British machinery dated from before the war. Where firms did re-equip — and some did — they survived longer, which suggests the cost argument is not the whole story. The third cause is the hardest to see: the industry was concentrated. A car plant closing takes a town's largest employer; a mill closing often took its only one, along with the suppliers and the shops that depended on it. That concentration is why the closures show up in the population figures of particular towns and not in national ones.

  1. 1. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
  2. 2. Identify which evidence supports which of the three causes.
  3. 3. How old was much of the British machinery?
  4. 4. What did a mill closing often take with it?

LessonPrint · RI.5.10 · Set 18 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text

Set 18. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. First, the bridge acted as a weir and slowed the water — supported by the nineteen arches. Second, the river's shape mattered — supported by the shallower, wider channel and the embankments. 2. To correct a common explanation — the second paragraph names it and downgrades it before giving the real causes. 3. At least twenty-four. 4. Nineteen.
  2. 2.1. To weigh three explanations rather than assert one — each is introduced and then qualified. 2. Cost: the wage difference. Investment: pre-war machinery and the survival of re-equipped firms. Concentration: the single-employer towns and the population figures. 3. It dated from before the war. 4. The town's only employer, plus the suppliers and shops that depended on it.

More practice for RI.5.10

Read and understand harder Grade 4-5 information texts on your own.

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Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.5.10 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.