Reading Assessment · Grades 3–6
Text Structure Assessment
A printable assessment for grades 3-6 on identifying how a nonfiction text is organized, the words that signal each pattern, and what text features do. Three passages, 24 items.
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What this assessment checks
The five patterns, plus the features that sit around them:
- Description, sequence, cause and effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution
- Signal words for each pattern
- Text features – headings, captions, contents, index
How to use it
Give it after the patterns have been taught with signal words. Passage 3 uses two patterns at once, which is what real nonfiction does.
Reading the results
Students who learned the patterns as a list of signal words will manage the first two passages and struggle with the third, where two patterns overlap. Accept either answer there if the signal word given genuinely supports it — the reasoning is the measure.
| Resource type | Assessment (printable PDF) |
| Grade range | Grades 3–6 |
| Passages | 3 original passages |
| Items | 24 across 6 sections |
| Answer key | Included on the final page |
| Time | About 30 minutes |
| Access | Full Member |