Author's claim worksheets
Each click picks one of the 26 passages written for this grade. Every sheet comes with its answer key. You don't need to sign up.
A claim is what the author wants you to believe. Evidence is what they show you so you will. Find the claim first; everything else in the piece is working for it.
Three grades, each its own sheet. Print one here, or open a grade for examples and teaching notes.
Print by grade
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4th grade
Fourth grade author's claim worksheets pair a real argument piece with questions that find its skeleton: what the author wants you to believe, which sentence backs it up, and which line is an opinion rather than a fact.
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5th grade Core grade
Each click picks one of the 26 passages written for this grade. Every sheet comes with its answer key. You don't need to sign up.
Fifth grade arguments get fuller: an objection appears, and the author answers it. Questions trace that move, ask which evidence supports which point, and check whether the reader can separate the argument's facts from its feelings.
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6th grade
Sixth grade questions evaluate: which evidence is strongest, what the author concedes, and what a doubter would attack first. Reading an argument without being carried away by it is the beginning of every subject that argues, which is most of them.
More on comprehension skills
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- Compare and contrast 1st–6th
- Firsthand and secondhand accounts 3rd–5th
- Genres 2nd–6th
- Making predictions 1st–3rd
- Picture sequencing Pre-K–2nd
- Plot 2nd–6th
- Poetry analysis 4th–8th
- Point of view 2nd–8th
- Problem and solution 1st–5th
- Sequencing 1st–3rd
- Summarizing 3rd–6th
- Text evidence 3rd–8th
- Text features 1st–5th
- Text structure 4th–8th
- Theme 2nd–8th
- Vocabulary in context 3rd–6th
All reading comprehension worksheets →
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