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  • 4th Grade
  • Reading
  • About 10 minutes

Write a Summary

Read the passage. Write a summary in 2 or 3 sentences. Use the checklist to check your work.

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Write a SummaryName:Date:Read the passage. Write a summary in 2 or 3 sentences. Use the checklist to check your work.Rivers of IceA glacier is a huge body of ice that moves slowly over land. Glaciers form inplaces where more snow falls in winter than melts in summer. Year after year,the snow piles up. The weight of the new snow presses down on the old snowand squeezes it into solid ice. When the ice gets thick and heavy enough, itbegins to flow downhill, like a very slow river. Most glaciers move only a fewinches or a few feet each day. As a glacier moves, it scrapes and carves theland beneath it. Rocks frozen into the bottom of the ice work like sandpaper,grinding the ground smooth. A glacier can turn a narrow, V-shaped river valleyinto a wide valley shaped like the letter U. Glaciers also carry rocks and soil formany miles. When the ice melts, it drops them in new places. Some giantboulders sitting alone in fields today were carried there by glaciers long ago.Thousands of years ago, glaciers covered much of North America. As theymelted, they left behind hills, valleys and thousands of lakes.Tells the main ideaHas the key detailsUses my own wordsLeaves out my opinionsMy summaryk5printables.com · Sheet #166024601 · Aligned with Common Core RL.4.2

This is sheet #166024601.

How to do it

  1. Read the passage.
  2. Write a summary in 2 or 3 sentences.
  3. Use the checklist to check your summary.

Teaching tip

These are the same passages as the 4th grade timed reading passages, so your student may already know them. This sheet is aligned with Common Core RL.4.2.

Write a Summary worksheet for 4th grade (theme and summary), free printable
Printable preview

About this worksheet

Five nonfiction passages, about honeybees, glaciers, the Pony Express, octopuses and bats, with a checklist and lines to write a 2 or 3 sentence summary. The answer key shows a sample summary.

What kids practice

A theme is the message or lesson about life that a story shows, like "Taking small steps can help you face something scary." Stories rarely state the theme, so readers figure it out from what the characters do and learn. A summary retells the most important parts of a story or passage in a few sentences, in the reader's own words.

Watch for

  • Giving a topic, like "courage," instead of a theme sentence.
  • Choosing a theme that fits only one small part of the story.
  • Retelling every event in a summary instead of the most important ones.
  • Leaving the ending out of a summary, or adding opinions like "It was a great story."

It's free to print, with an answer key. See the full theme and summary guide for 4th grade.

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