Free ESL Reading Activity Grade 8

A Balanced Life Reading Activity

About This Resource

A three-page reading comprehension activity for Grade 8 ESL built around an original passage about a student who changes her sleep, food, and screen-time habits after her school's Health Week. Includes true/false, multiple-choice, and short-answer questions.

Overview

The passage, "A Balanced Life," follows Nichakan, a Grade 8 student, as she describes her habits before and after her school's Health Week, including the advice she later gives her younger cousin using should/shouldn't. Comprehension questions move from literal recall (true/false and multiple choice) to inference and personal response (short answer), and one question specifically asks students to locate the should/shouldn't sentences within the text, connecting the reading to this topic's grammar focus.

Resource Details

Subject: ESL
Topic: A Balanced Life Reading Activity
Category: Reading
File Type: PDF
File Size: 54.1 KB
Published: 06 Sep 2026
Downloads: 0

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Students will be able to identify key details in a short narrative reading passage.
Students will be able to answer true/false and multiple-choice comprehension questions accurately.
Students will be able to locate specific grammatical structures (should/shouldn't) within a text.
Students will be able to give and briefly justify a personal opinion in response to the reading.

How to Use This Resource

Have students read the passage independently or in pairs, either silently or aloud. Complete the true/false and multiple-choice sections first, reviewing answers as a class before moving to the short-answer section, which requires more developed responses. The question asking students to find the should/shouldn't sentences in the text works well as a bridge into the Health Advice Role-Play speaking activity.

Classroom Activity Ideas

After checking answers, have students work in pairs to role-play a short phone call between Nichakan and her cousin, using the two pieces of advice from the passage as a starting point and extending the conversation with one or two additional exchanges.

Differentiation

Support: Allow students to underline the relevant sentence in the passage before answering each true/false or multiple-choice question, and read the passage aloud as a class before independent work begins.
On-Level: Students complete the reading and all three question sections independently.
Challenge: Ask students to summarize the passage in three sentences of their own before answering the questions, or to write one additional true/false statement of their own for a partner to answer.

Assessment

Mark the true/false and multiple-choice sections against the answer key. For the short-answer section, check that responses are supported by details from the passage and that the personal-opinion question includes a brief, relevant reason.

Teacher Tips

Before students read, ask them to predict from the title alone what "a balanced life" might involve — activating this prior vocabulary makes the passage's health-related words easier to recognize on the first read.