Reading is a very important part of learning a language. It's considered a receptive skill, otherwise known as a passive skill, which means that students don’t necessarily have to produce language - just receive it. But more often than not, students have difficulty reading because of vocabulary and/or the context involved. BusyTeacher.org offers 1,314 reading comprehension worksheets that are sure to help your students stay engaged in their reading, by providing interesting stories and effective exercises.
We as teachers don’t always have the time to make up our own stories, or go through books to pick out excerpts to present in our lessons. The reading worksheets on BusyTeacher.org offer a variety of different stories and texts in different categories and genres to help your students improve their reading ability and learn the language, all the while enjoying the stories they're reading. Depending on what you're aiming to teach, you can use these worksheets in a whole variety of different ways in the classroom. If a worksheet has a story that contains dialogue, you could assign roles to students and have them act out what the characters say. You can also use the stories on the worksheets to create comprehension questions. Some worksheets can even make for classroom discussion topics. After reading a passage, you can present a question to students, and ask them to give their opinions of where the story is going. These are just some of the many things you can do to make use of these worksheets in the classroom.
Whether you're teaching scanning, skimming, critical thinking, or reading for gist, BusyTeacher.org has the worksheet(s) you need for your lessons. There are worksheets on just about any topic you can think of - sports, business, history, and holidays to name a few. Another handy feature on BusyTeacher.org is that each worksheet has the level shown in the description, which makes it easy for you to find an appropriate worksheet for your students. The thumbnail can be opened to full page view, so you can check if the worksheet is right for your lesson. Some worksheets you'll find here are appropriate for several - or even for all levels, which means they're reusable for a future lessons with students at different levels.
No registration or subscription is necessary to download our worksheets. They’re all free to download, copy, and use in your lessons. Plus, all of them were created and uploaded by fellow ESL teachers from all around the globe, and have helped other ESL teachers in their lessons. In addition, if you have a worksheet you've created and would like to submit it to this site, you can do so by clicking the “Submit a worksheet” link at the bottom of this page. Join thousands of other ESL teachers using BusyTeacher.org, and bookmark us as your number-one stop for worksheets to use in your lessons daily! With 1,314 reading worksheets, planning your lessons has never been easier. Get started by checking out the most popular worksheets below. Try downloading one and using it in your lesson today!
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I attended a course a few weeks ago about how to tailor our students’ needs and abilities when preparing a test, and this suggestion caught my interest. The test is displayed on a tic-tac-to ...
The ws is about The Colossus of Rhodes - one of the world wonders. The rhyme is taken from the net. Students will compare 2 statues, do a quizz, put the verbs in the correct form, solve the crossw ...
It's about the hanging gardens of Babylon with the text and some exercises. Thr rhyme is taken from the net. Hangigng gardens is one of the world ancient wonders. Students read the text and t ...
This presentation introduces students to the main themes, context and characters of The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. Ideal for students who have read the book but not yet begun to study it as ...
This presentation introduces students to the main themes, context and characters of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Ideal for students who have read the book but not yet begun to study it as ...
This presentation introduces students to Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. It gives them an outline of the context, key themes and other issues regarding the novel. It would be best ...
This is a reading test for intermediate students who are asked to read the text, say who or what do the words refer to, go through the text and find words or expressions that mean the same as the ...
This is a reading test for intermediate level. Students are asked to match the paragraphs and the headlines,decide whether the statements are true or false, find in the text words that mean the s ...
A relatively detailed presentation that introduces students to Arthur Conan Doyle and the stories of Sherlock Holmes. Contains background information about the author, context, genre, main charact ...
This worksheet helps a beginner to recognize the short vowels. It also assists the student in completing words and understanding the meaning of the vowel in the word. A beginner can try and r ...
I realised I had been downloading files from this amazing website for a long time and I hadn't contributed in any way in exchange. In this case, I made this mini test on "Mrs. Bixby and the ...
This is a reading test for intermediate students who are asked to read the text, go through the text and find words or expressions that mean the same as words given, complete the sentences with in ...
This worksheet contains a text about the inca legend of the "payachatas". Item I, use the vocabulary given to fill in the blanks in the text. Item II, what's the message of the story? Item I ...
This cloze activity can be used as an extra resource when teaching students about teeth and eating. There are 10 sentences to complete. Students read the sentences and fill in the missing words fr ...
This reading comprehension includes some interesting facts about the sun bear. Did you know that the sun bear is the smallest member of the bear family? Students read through the article and answe ...
This short reading comprehension includes some interesting facts about Ollie the Octopus. My name is Ollie. I am an octopus. I have a very large head. Do you know how many arms I have? I have eigh ...
This is a multi-skill lesson plan incorporating reading, speaking, watching and a follow-up activity as homework assignment about the famous US president Abraham Lincoln. This lesson is based on L ...
It offers a brief text of about 230 words about the problems of keeping New Year's resolutions. It was adapted from an online magazine. It has pre-reading and post-reading activities. It includes ...
This worksheet is used in conjunction with a lesson on the parts of the body for young, beginner students. It uses the characters from the movie Monster Inc. to help students learn the names of th ...
This worksheet is intended to introduce the titles of family members for young, beginner students. It includes: a family prompt and questions, a word search, a match the person with the descriptio ...
This article includes some interesting facts about the gray whale. Gray whales are baleen whales (filter feeders). They often look like crusty ocean rocks. This is because they are covered in para ...
Here is a worksheet I created for my intermediate classes to make a comparison between my country (Italy) and Ireland, with details about politics, population, culture, geography. Then you can let ...
In this set of copies you will find a lot of tasks to work with the story by Sir. Edgar A. Poe: The Black Cat. You can find before, while and after reading activities. You can adapt the activities ...
This is a simple reading activity you can adapt to work with your students. There is a paragraph to read about comics and then material to prepare flash cards so that students have to guess who th ...
This worksheet helps students take a glimpse at India, this far-away country which we do not know very much about. The information provided is easy to digest, and hopefully makes students inspired ...
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