The Importance of Soil – Comprehension Worksheets

Teach your students about the importance of soil to plants, animals and humans with this differentiated reading comprehension passage with accompanying questions.

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Curriculum

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.10

Science 4.7(A)

The Importance of Soil – Comprehension Worksheets

Teach your students about the importance of soil to plants, animals and humans with this differentiated reading comprehension passage with accompanying questions.

• Printable PDF (pdf) Sign up to Plus
• Google Slides Sign up to Plus

Teach your students about the importance of soil to plants, animals and humans with this differentiated reading comprehension passage with accompanying questions.

Looking for a Soil Reading Comprehension Worksheet?

With today’s overcrowded curriculum, it can often be challenging for teachers to find enough time in the day to fit in all the content that each learning area dictates. That’s why resources that cover multiple curriculum areas at once are so incredibly valuable for teachers!

This reading comprehension resource does exactly that! It enables students to build their comprehension skills while simultaneously teaching them about how soil supports all living things on our planet. That’s ELA and Science content covered by one handy resource!

The resource download includes:

• 3 x differentiated reading passages
• 3 x differentiated question pages, including multiple choice and short response questions
• Answers for all sets of questions

To make it easier for teachers to identify the three differentiated versions (but not so obvious to the students!), a star system has been used. The harder version of the worksheet, the more stars in the top right corner of the worksheet.

Choose the delivery method that best suits your students and their learning needs. Some students may be perfectly capable of completing the differentiated worksheet chosen for their ability independently, while others may benefit from reading the passage in a small group with targeted adult support.

This soil reading comprehension worksheet can be downloaded as a black-and-white PDF or an editable Google Slides file.

Kill two birds with one stone (figuratively speaking!) with this integrated ELA and Science resource!

Multiple Uses for This Soil Reading Comprehension

Looking for ways to incorporate this soil resource in your classroom? Here are one teacher’s suggestions.

1. Whole-Class Activity – Project one of the reading passages onto your interactive whiteboard and work through the questions as a class. This is a great option if you are using the resource at the beginning of your unit of work.
2. Reading Group Task – Why not use these comprehension passages as a collaborative reading group activity? This is a great way to integrate your science and literacy curricula by covering multiple learning outcomes with one resource!
3. Revision Activity – Comprehension activities make great study guides! Before a test or summative assessment for your soil unit, have the students complete the comprehension activity to review key concepts and vocabulary.

Download to Access This Soil Reading Comprehension Worksheet

Use the dropdown menu on the Download button above to access either the easy-print PDF or the Google Slides version of this resource. (Note: You will be prompted to make a copy of the Google Slides template before accessing it.)

As this file contains multiple student versions and answer pages, we recommend printing one copy of the entire file, then selecting and removing the pages you wish to photocopy for the students.

Please consider printing this resource double-sided for sustainability purposes.

This resource was created by Caitlyn Phillips, a Teach Starter collaborator.

More Teacher-Created Activities for Exploring Soil

Looking for more activities to explore the importance of soil with your students? Click on the resources below to add to your collection!

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Plant Growth in Soils – Science Experiment

Explore how plants grow in different types of soil with this science experiment perfect for elementary school science lessons.

10 pages Grade: 4

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The Importance of Soil Posters

Show your students how plants, animals and humans need soil to survive with this set of three informative classroom posters to accompany your science lessons.

1 page Grade: 4

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Why Is Soil Important? Teaching Slides

Explain to your students how living things depend on soil with this informative teaching presentation perfect for elementary school science lessons.