5th grade cause and effect worksheets

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Fifth grade cause and effect worksheets follow chains of three to five links, in passages like the Dust Bowl or a chess club that loses its room. Questions ask about the links in the middle, not just the first and last, and the signal words go past because and so to as a result, due to and consequently.

Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core RI.5.3.

Each click picks one of the 15 passages written for this grade. Every sheet comes with its answer key. You don't need to sign up.

The kind of passages you'll get

Read the passage. Then circle the letter of the best answer for each question.

The Lake That Turns Over

Every fall, people who live near certain northern lakes notice something odd. For a few days, the water turns cloudy, and some lakes give off a smell like rotten eggs. Then, almost as suddenly, the water clears. Nobody has dumped anything in the lake. The…

  1. The passage begins with cloudy, smelly water in the fall. What causes it? water from the bottom rises to the top · something has been dumped into the lake · fish swim up from the deep water · summer sunlight warms the surface layer

    Answer: water from the bottom rises to the top

  2. Why does the bottom of some lakes run low on oxygen by late summer? rotting uses it, and the layers block new oxygen · fish crowd into the deep water and breathe it all · the turnover carries the oxygen up to the top · the warm top layer sinks down and pushes it out

Each print picks one of the 15 passages written for this grade, and its questions come with it. With 15 to pick from, a second print can land on one you've used, so check the title before you hand it out.

What's on a 5th grade sheet

5th grade sheets draw from 15 passages, 297 to 328 words long. 5th and 6th grade print from the same 15 passages. What changes is the standard (RI.5.3 here) and the teaching notes below. None of these passages are on 4th grade sheets. On 4th grade sheets they run 255 to 289 words.

Some of the titles: Seventy Years Without Wolves, A Reef Gone Pale, Islands on a Conveyor Belt, The Sticky Table, Saturday Pancakes, The Corner of Linden and Fifth.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

Have your child draw the chain as boxes and arrows before answering: prairie plowed, rain fails, soil turns to dust, families move west. Questions often point at a box in the middle, so the whole chain needs to be on paper. Then look for signal words together. As a result and consequently point ahead to an effect. Due to and because point back to a cause. Some links have no signal word at all, and the order of events is the only clue.

Watch for: Kids pick the event that comes first in the SENTENCE as the cause, but writers often name the effect first: 'The game was canceled because of rain.' The word because points to the cause, wherever it sits. Two things happening near each other is not cause and effect. The dog barked and the mail came, but the barking did not deliver the mail. Ask whether one truly made the other happen.

Common questions about 5th grade cause and effect

What does cause and effect look like in 5th grade?
Longer chains, where one event sets off three or four more. Fifth graders put the links in order and answer questions about a link in the middle. They also read signal words beyond because and so, like as a result, due to and consequently.
Why are some wrong answers things that really happened?
A detail can be true, and can even come first, without causing anything. Children mix these up all the time, so the wrong choices use the same mix-ups: an effect passed off as a cause, or the cause of a different event in the passage.

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Aligned to Common Core RI.5.3. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

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