This 5th grade reading worksheet follows Thomas, a 12-year-old apprentice to a printer in Boston in 1760. Students read a passage that moves from morning water chores to Long Wharf, a dame school, a town meeting at Faneuil Hall and a tallow candle at night. Page 2 has four multiple-choice questions and two written ones. A chart then compares colonial life with life today. The answer key gives sample responses.
RL.5.1
“Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.”
Questions 5 and 6 ask students to back their answers with a phrase or two details from the passage.
“Compare life in colonial Boston with life today.”
The Then and Now chart covers school, work and light at night.
Five paragraphs told by Thomas, with a picture of a boy setting type. Details include carrying buckets to the pump, placing metal type backward and a hornbook covered with clear horn.
Four multiple-choice questions on Long Wharf, hornbooks, backward type and the busy harbor. Question 5 asks for the meaning of apprentice with a supporting phrase. Question 6 asks students to choose Thomas's routine or their own and give two details.
A chart with rows for school, work and light at night, where students fill in colonial life in 1760 and life today.
Letters for questions 1 to 4, a definition of apprentice with the supporting line, and a full sample chart.
Read it twice
Read the passage aloud once, then let students reread it silently with a pencil and underline anything that sounds hard. Most mark the hornbook and type.
Show a hornbook
Search for a hornbook photo and put it up before question 2. Students who have seen one answer it quickly.
Finish with the chart
Do the Then and Now chart as a partner talk first. The light at night row works well, because students rarely think about how dark an evening was.
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