Free Informational Reading Passages

Informational reading passages help students build knowledge while practicing comprehension. PicoBuddy offers informational texts for elementary and middle school readers, with topics that can connect to science, history, animals, technology, geography, health, inventions and real-world questions.

Every PicoBuddy passage includes comprehension questions, an online quiz, a free PDF download and an editable Word download. This makes each informational passage flexible for classroom lessons, homeschool practice, tutoring, homework, intervention or independent reading. You can print the PDF, assign the quiz online or adapt the Word version for your students.

Informational passages are useful for practicing main idea, details, vocabulary in context, cause and effect, compare and contrast, text structure, summarizing and using evidence from the text. They also help students learn how nonfiction texts explain ideas, organize facts and build understanding.

The collection can support a wide range of learners. Teachers can use informational texts to connect reading with content-area lessons. Parents and homeschoolers can use them to help children learn about the world while practicing reading skills. ELL students can benefit from clear topic-based reading practice with questions.

For more ready-to-use materials, browse our free reading passages. If you need a text for a specific lesson or topic, you can also create a custom reading passage in PicoBuddy.

Use informational reading passages when you want students to practice comprehension and learn something new at the same time.