3rd grade nonfiction reading comprehension worksheets
Third graders read denser informational text and work out the main idea, the meaning of new words from context, and why the author included a detail. The skill grows from finding facts to understanding what the facts add up to.
Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core RI.3.1.
A new sheet every click.
The kind of passages you'll get
Read the passage. Then circle the letter of the best answer for each question.
Why Your Ears Pop
You are riding up a tall elevator or flying in a plane, and suddenly, pop! Your ears feel strange, then clear. What happened? Air is always pressing on you from every side. Behind each eardrum is a small pocket of air. When you go up…
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Where is the trapped pocket of air?
behind the eardrum · in your throat · in your nose · under your tongue
Answer: behind the eardrum
- What happens to outside air as you go up? it becomes thinner · it becomes heavier · it gets warmer · it stops moving
Every print pulls a fresh set of passages at this level, so a make-up test or a second sibling never gets the same sheet.
What's on each sheet
- Reading passage. Read the passage. Then circle the letter of the best answer for each question. One fresh passage per sheet, with its own question set.
Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.
How to teach this
Ask the roll-up question after the facts: what was this whole passage mostly about, in one sentence? Then the sharper one: why do you think the author told us that detail? Big numbers and comparisons are always doing a job at this level, and naming the job is real comprehension.
Watch for: The main idea is what the whole passage teaches, not the most exciting single fact. New words are usually explained nearby; the passage wants you to understand them.
Common questions about nonfiction reading comprehension
- How do I teach finding the main idea?
- Ask for a one-sentence answer to what did this teach you, then test it: does every paragraph fit under that sentence? If a paragraph doesn't fit, the sentence is too small. Our mostly-about questions give the same test in multiple-choice form.
- Why do the wrong answers sound so reasonable?
- They're usually true-sounding statements that the passage never actually said, which is the exact trap standardized tests set. The cure is the proof habit: an answer only counts if a sentence in the passage backs it up.
Related worksheets
- Kindergarten nonfiction reading comprehension A step easier, same skill
- 1st grade nonfiction reading comprehension A step easier, same skill
- 2nd grade nonfiction reading comprehension A step easier, same skill
- 4th grade nonfiction reading comprehension A step harder, same skill
- 5th grade nonfiction reading comprehension A step harder, same skill
- 6th grade nonfiction reading comprehension A step harder, same skill
- 3rd grade author's purpose Same grade, nearby skill
- 3rd grade fact vs opinion Same grade, nearby skill
- 3rd grade fiction reading comprehension Same grade, nearby skill
- Nonfiction reading comprehension, all grades The full progression
- All 3rd grade English worksheets Every skill at this level
- All 3rd grade worksheets Everything at this level
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Aligned to Common Core RI.3.1. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 137, updated August 2026.
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