6th grade summarizing worksheets

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Sixth grade summarizing passages mix real history and science with stories that carry several threads, and the questions add the standard's new test: keeping your own opinions out. Your child picks the summary that covers the whole arc, spots the detail a summary cannot drop, catches one too small to keep, and names the option that is a judgment instead of a fact from the text.

Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core RL.6.2, RI.6.2.

Each click picks one of the 13 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 Mountain of Lost Jackets

By February, the lost-and-found bin at Westbrook Elementary had stopped being a bin and become a mountain. It sat in a dark closet beside the gym: jackets, sweatshirts, lunch boxes, a single rain boot, and a trumpet case nobody could explain. Ms. Hale, the principal,…

  1. Which sentence best sums up the whole passage? When announcements failed to empty an overflowing lost and found, Dev posted photos of the items where parents waited, and most went home · The lost-and-found bin at Westbrook Elementary sat in a dark closet beside the gym and held jackets, sweatshirts, lunch boxes, and a trumpet case · Ms. Hale found her lost scarf on the board · Schools collect many lost things every year

    Answer: When announcements failed to empty an overflowing lost and found, Dev posted photos of the items where parents waited, and most went home

  2. Which detail belongs in a summary? the morning announcements brought almost no one to the closet · the closet beside the gym smelled a lot like old gym socks · the pile held a single rain boot · the pictures were printed on the school copier

Each print picks one of the 13 passages written for this grade, and its questions come with it. With 13 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 6th grade sheet

6th grade sheets draw from 13 passages, 295 to 302 words long. All 13 are on 5th grade sheets too, along with 10 more.

Some of the titles: Twelve Months of Books, The Fair on the Floor, The Mud Angels, The Glue That Would Not Stick, The Cave the Dog Found, The Carpenter's Clock.

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

How to teach this

Hunt the opinion. One option on most sheets sounds like a summary and is really a verdict: should have, deserved, the best ever. A summary reports; it never grades. Then run the stranger test on the chosen summary, and ask what a stranger would know from it alone and what they would wrongly believe.

Watch for: The most memorable detail is usually NOT summary material. Kids grab the funny line or the surprising fact; a summary needs the load-bearing events. A summary that fits only the first paragraph is a topic, not a summary. It has to cover the ending too.

Common questions about 6th grade summarizing

What is new in sixth grade summarizing?
Two things. The passages are real science and history alongside fiction, so a summary has to hold facts in the right order. And the questions ask your child to spot an opinion hiding among the options, because the standard says a summary stays clear of personal judgments.
How long should a summary be?
One or two sentences a stranger could understand: who or what, the problem or idea, and how it turned out. If the sentence needs a third clause to be fair to the passage, that is fine. If it needs a fifth, it is a retelling.

Related worksheets

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Want a different passage? Print again. Each print picks one of the 13.

Aligned to Common Core RL.6.2, RI.6.2. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

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