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Reading a Poem Aloud is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on reading poetry well enough to record it, aligned to Common Core standard SL.5.5. 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.

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

Reading a Poem Aloud

SL.5.5

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What We Kept

Stanza one: We kept the table, which was too big, and the clock, which had never gone, and a tin of buttons nobody wanted, and the habit of turning lights off. Stanza two: We gave away the good chairs. We gave away the china, all of it. We gave away the piano to a school because none of us could play. Stanza three: Ten years on, I would not know the chairs if I saw them in a window on a street. But I turn the hall light off behind me every single time, and think of her.

  1. 1. Why does the first stanza list a habit alongside objects?
  2. 2. Quote the line that shows the given-away things are forgotten.
  3. 3. Put these in order: the piano goes to a school, ten years pass, the buttons are kept.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Bell

Stanza one: The church has gone. They took the stone for walls and gateposts, load by load. Where the aisle was there is a field. Where the door was there is a road. Stanza two: The bell they could not sell or break. It hung in a barn for eighty years, green with the damp, out of the way, mute as a stone among the gears. Stanza three: Last spring they hung it in the school. It rings at nine and rings at three. The children do not know its age and ring it anyway, and it is free. Stanza four: So the building went, and the faith went, and the road runs where the door was cut, and still the sound the masons heard goes out at nine, and comes back, and stops.

  1. 1. Explain how the four stanzas fit together to make the poem's point.
  2. 2. Why does the poem give the bell its own stanza?
  3. 3. Quote the words that connect the present sound to the past.

LessonPrint · SL.5.5 · Set 20 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Poem Aloud

Set 20. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. So the last stanza can reveal that the habit was the real inheritance. 2. "I would not know the chairs if I saw them in a window on a street". 3. The buttons are kept, the piano goes to a school, ten years pass.
  2. 2.1. The church goes, the bell survives unused, the bell returns to use, and the last stanza states what has and has not lasted. 2. Because the bell is the one thing that continues, so it is separated from what was lost. 3. "still the sound the masons heard goes out at nine".

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to SL.5.5 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.