Anxiety and Worry Reading Comprehension Passages — Grade 5

About this resource

By fifth grade, worries look further ahead. These anxiety and worry reading comprehension passages help Grade 5 students look at worry with steady eyes instead of trying to make it vanish. Across ten texts at F&P levels S–V, they tell a worry that leads to a plan from one that only spins, and practice the Self-Management side of facing fears.

What students practice

• Turning a worry into a plan instead of a loop
• Checking a rumor against the facts
• Seeing why avoiding brings only short relief
• Building a worry ladder, one step at a time
• Living with some uncertainty
• Asking a counselor or coach for help

What’s inside

• 10 passages at F&P levels S–V, including a fable told by a worry itself
• 5 multiple-choice questions per passage, with vocabulary and text-structure items
• 2 prompts per passage that ask students to explain their thinking and apply it
• Answer key for the multiple-choice questions on the last page
• 44 pages

A look inside

• Productive Worry vs. Spinning Worry: two fifth graders face the same presentation in very different ways.
• Why I Almost Quit Drama Club: Birgit notices that avoiding felt good for a moment but made the worry grow.
• Building Your Own Worry Ladder: rate worries from small to big and climb at your own pace with support.
• Uncertainty: Why Not Knowing Feels Hard: why living with some not-knowing can make worry less powerful.
• The Worry Who Wanted to Help: a worry tries to protect Aroha before her first climbing class, but gets too loud.

How to use these anxiety and worry reading passages with Grade 5

• Guided reading groups at levels S to V
• Partner reading, with the two prompts as a discussion start
• SEL lessons, with students sketching their own worry ladder after the how-to guide
• Independent practice or homework, checked with the answer key

Grade fit

Fifth graders can handle ideas like uncertainty and avoidance, and these passages give them real situations to test them on: a rumor about an impossible project, a middle school visit day, a coach who still feels worried before big games. These reading passages with questions run from S to V.

Digital version

With the interactive digital version, you share one link and students read each passage and answer the questions on any device, with no student logins. At the end they download an answer sheet to hand in.

Good to know

In “When Worry Gets in the Way of Fun,” Bronwyn has skipped several activities because of worry and makes a plan with the school counselor. It’s a natural moment to remind students who they can go to at school.

Pairs well with

Build coping skills for anxiety further with Anxiety and Worry Conversation Cards or the Anxiety and Worry Worksheets — Multiple-Choice Scenarios.