The Clever Octopus: Grade 2 Reading Passage

About this worksheet

A second grade ocean passage about the octopus: eight arms with suckers, no bones, color-changing skin, ink and jar-opening smarts. A free printable 2nd grade nonfiction passage (103 words) with multiple-choice how many/how/why questions, true-or-false sentences and a short written answer. Answer key on page 2. It fits second grade readers, around ages 7 to 8.

On this sheet

An octopus is a sea animal with eight long arms. Each arm is covered with suckers that help it grab food and hold on to rocks. An octopus has no bones, so it can squeeze through a very small hole! Octopuses are masters of hiding. Many can change the color of their skin in less than a second to match the rocks and sand around them. If a hungry fish still finds one, the octopus can squirt a cloud of dark ink and zoom away.

Tips for using it

• 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.