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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This is the appendix to the song worksheet 'Cajun Life by Jo-El Sonnier' - search for part (1). The document is a reading text taken from the sleevenotes to an album with Cajun and Zydeco music wh ...
It's a writing worksheet. The topic is travelling in China. In this worksheet, students will learn how to write a recount about their travelling experience. Students can acquire some reading skill ...
This worksheet contains images and descriptions of the most popular holidays. The pictures are coloured in bright colours and has pink background, making the worksheet 'friendly' and appealing to ...
Reading task based on an article about Nelson Mandela. Students have to match the questions with the correct article piece. The task gives an overview of who was Nelson Mandela, what he did, whata ...
This text is really interesting and talks about how English grammar came out. It is a bit long text but anyway students can manage to do it. It has ten multiple-choice questions and you can teach ...
A 4 page early reader and additional activities for review of sightwords and to introduce vocabulary for public transport. Sight words: a, the, see, I, look, at, can. Vocabulary:&nb ...
There are two reading texts, one of them is with 7 gaps and students are expected to find the right ones for each gap. The other text is about the Great Wall of China and consists of multiple choi ...
This worksheet includes some interesting facts and information about conservation. Animals and plants are dying out at an alarming rate. Throughout history living things have become extinct, mainl ...
This elementary/primary worksheet includes some interesting information about festivals. Festivals and feasts are special times where people come together and celebrate. Students read through the ...
This elementary/primary worksheet includes some interesting facts about marsh and swamp wildlife. Did you know that the freshwater areas of swamps and marshland are called wetlands? Students are a ...
This set of worksheets that I made is for writing Dolch pre-primer words multiple times while also addressing the students handwriting. As my students memorize them I will cross-out the ones memo ...
This material contains pictures of different fairytale characters and children have to guess their names. While guessing they learn new vocabulary. Later they see pictures from different stories a ...
It is a reading comprehension worksheet for teaching or revising family related vocabulary at elementary level(or pre-intermediate). It contains a text in which the family is described. After read ...
This worksheet is devoted to the weather and weather forecasts. It can be used as a warm up though it is quite mind-boggling, so if your students like a bit difficult tasks it might be for you. Th ...
This reading comprehension includes some interesting facts about four famous athletes and their sport achievements. Children must read through the texts and answer the questions. It can be used w ...
This activity was prepared for elementary pupils. It is about a boy and his family. I tried to use many words from the family members topic to give them a chance to practise and understand them. I ...
This is a great text that tells the history of how the first Thanksgiving came to be. At the end there is a true or false section for students to answer. A great text for discussion, vocabulary, a ...
A lesson for upper-primary school students (or maybe very new secondary school students) at elementary or pre-intermediate levels, acting as an extension activity after studying a unit on sport. S ...
It gives the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice, in which new words are highlighted in black colour. Students firstly read it and then discuss it. Before this worksheet, students learn about the ...
This reading comprehension includes some interesting facts about the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic is the smallest and shallowest of the five oceans and lies between the landmasses around the North Pol ...
This reading comprehension includes some interesting facts about the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the five oceans and covers about 20% of the Earth's surface. Studen ...
This reading comprehension includes interesting facts about the Pacific Ocean. The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the five oceans and lies between Africa, the Southern Ocean, Asia, and Austr ...
This reading comprehension includes interesting facts about the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific is the largest and deepest ocean in the world and covers more than a third of the globe. It is larger tha ...
This worksheet is based on the story of Beowulf and can be used for storytelling. First, you can give your students the pictures and ask them to describe them and guess what the story is about. Se ...
This worksheet contains various activities. It starts with a reading exercise. First students have to translate words from the text and explain the title and the rest of the article. Then they wil ...
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