1st Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheets: The Tall Block Tower
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Download PDF worksheetAnswer key (PDF)Worksheet + answer key (3 pages)
The worksheet is 2 pages (passage, then questions); the answer key is 1 page. Print at 100% / "Actual size" on US Letter paper. Free for personal and classroom use.
Skill: Reading a short story and answering questions about key details and characters
Teaching tips and what to try next
A good match for first graders who read simple sentences on their own or follow along while an adult reads. Building a small tower together after reading lets your child act out the story and retell what happened first, next and last. For more practice with feelings and details, read Reading Comprehension: The Lost Mitten or Reading Comprehension: The Rainy Day Fort.
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About this worksheet
First graders are learning that a story is more than a list of events. Characters have problems, feel things, and try new ideas. This first-grade reading comprehension worksheet uses an original short story to practice finding key details and talking about how a character feels.
In the story, Nora and her little brother Ben build a tower out of wooden blocks on a rainy afternoon. The tower gets very tall, and then it crashes. Instead of giving up, the two of them work out a better way to build and try again. The story is about 200 words long, with short sentences and familiar words that suit a first-grade reader or a read-aloud. After reading, children answer four multiple-choice questions about details in the story, and one question that asks them to write how Ben felt and how they know.
How to use it: read the title and look at the first sentence together. Ask your child to predict what might happen to a very tall tower. After reading, go back to the story to find the sentence that proves each answer, and underline it. That habit of looking back is the main skill first graders practice with questions like these. For the written answer, accept a feeling word plus one clue from the story, such as a detail about Ben's face.
The answer key gives every correct choice, the words from the story that support it, and a sample written answer. For another first-grade story, try our Reading Comprehension: The Lost Mitten worksheet or our Reading Comprehension: The Rainy Day Fort worksheet.