Potential and Kinetic Energy Reading Passage and Worksheets

Help students build the background knowledge they need to understand potential and kinetic energy with this ready-to-use informational text and comprehension activity.
 
Students learn the difference between potential and kinetic energy through familiar examples, including a skateboarder moving down a hill, a ball being thrown, and the energy we get from food. The passage also introduces the idea that energy can change forms and transfer between objects, giving students a foundation for learning about specific forms of energy.
 
What's Included
⭐ Informational reading passage on potential and kinetic energy
⭐ 3 multiple-choice comprehension questions
⭐ 2 short-answer comprehension questions
⭐ answer key
⭐ subject & predicate writing activity connected to the science content
 
More Than Reading Comprehension
I created this resource to combine content knowledge, reading, and writing rather than teaching comprehension as a collection of disconnected strategies.
 
It's a simple way to build background knowledge and academic language while giving students explicit practice with sentence structure.
 
Build an Energy Knowledge Sequence
This resource works especially well as an introduction to an energy unit. Once students understand the foundational concepts of potential and kinetic energy, you can build on that knowledge with texts about:
Chemical Energy • Thermal Energy • Electrical Energy • Sound Energy • Light Energy • Mechanical Energy • Nuclear Energy
 
The Productive Teacher
I create practical, research-informed resources that combine explicit instruction, language development, reading comprehension, writing, and background knowledge because what students know and the language they understand matter when they read, write, and learn.