Unit 1 Reading Comprehension Activity — A New Student at Riverbend School

Learning Objectives

• Use skimming to correctly identify the main idea of a short passage within 30 seconds.
• Use scanning to locate specific details and answer at least 4 of 5 short-answer questions correctly.
• Correctly identify true or false for at least 5 of 6 statements about the passage.
• Identify the vocabulary word matching a given definition using paragraph-number context clues in at least 3 of 4 items.

How to Use This Resource

• Use during Lesson 3 of the unit (see the Lesson Plan, Resource 11). Introduce the skim/scan distinction briefly, give students 30 seconds to skim before answering the warm-up question, then have them read in full and complete Parts A through C.

Classroom Activity Ideas

• After Part B, have students write one additional true/false statement of their own about the passage (correct or deliberately false) and trade with a partner to answer — this doubles as an informal check that they understood the passage well enough to write about it themselves.

Assessment

Score Part A (6 items) and Part C (4 items) directly against the answer key. Part B's five short-answer items should be scored for accurate content rather than exact wording, since answers may be phrased in the student's own words.

Teacher Tips

Time the skim step strictly at 30 seconds using a visible countdown — students consistently try to fully read the passage during "skim" time unless the time pressure is enforced, which defeats the purpose of practicing the strategy.

What's Included

• 1 DOCX activity (2 pages: skim/scan warm-up, passage, Parts A–C)
• 1 matching PDF export
• 1 separate DOCX + PDF answer key

Additional Files

• Download Word Version (DOCX)
• Answer Key (Printable) (PDF)

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