One way in which students deepen their reading comprehension is to learn about cause and effect. Students learn that when an action happens, there is often one or more reactions to that event. Learning to identify cause and effect teaches students two important elements of reading comprehension:
- What happens in the story, and
- Why it happened.
There are lots of instances in which cause and effect take place. In reading, this can happen in the plot of stories or historical texts, for example.
In science, cause and effect are explored in experiments.
For example: when you leave an ice cube in direct sunlight, it will melt.
Throughout elementary school students practice causes and the effects that resulted from those causes.
We’ve created a series of worksheets for students in grade 1 to grade 5 to practice cause and effect.
Grade 1 cause and effect worksheets
These simple worksheets practice what is the effect, and what is the cause in multiple choice questions.
Cause and effect practice for grade 2
In these worksheets, students are given short texts and asked what happened and why.
Grade 3 cause and effect exercises
In grade 3, students move onto longer texts and are asked what happened (the effect) and why (the cause).
Cause and effect in the real world for grade 4 students
Students practice cause and effect in non-fiction texts in these worksheets.
Practice cause and effect for grade 5 students
In more complex texts, students identify the causes and effects at the grade 5 level.
