The Christmas Eve Blizzard: Grade 4 Reading Passage

About this worksheet

A blizzard closes the roads and knocks out the power on Christmas Eve, and Maya's family shares their fire with an elderly neighbor. A free printable 4th grade short story (192 words) with multiple-choice why/who/vocabulary/how questions and a short written answer. Answer key on page 2. Fourth graders can read it on their own and back up each answer with a sentence from the text. Red, green and gold make a classic Christmas palette.

On this sheet

By noon on Christmas Eve, the snow was falling so thick that Maya could not see the mailbox at the end of the driveway. The radio announced that the roads were closed. Aunt Rosa, Uncle Ben and the cousins could not drive over for dinner. Maya slumped against the window. "Christmas is ruined," she said. Then the lights flickered and went out. The furnace stopped humming, and the house grew quiet and cold. Mom lit candles while Dad built a fire in the fireplace.

Tips for using it

• Add white for snow.
• Before reading, look at the picture and the title together and guess what the passage will be about.
• Ask your child to underline the sentence in the passage that proves each answer.
• Talk about the story afterwards: what was the problem, how was it solved, and what would your child have done?

Printing tips

Download the PDF and print at 100% (or “fit to page” on A4). Page 1 is the worksheet and page 2 is the answer key with the answers in red; print just page 1 if you want to keep the answers for checking. Free for personal, family and classroom use.