Boundaries and Personal Safety Reading Comprehension Passages — Grade 3

About this resource

Keeping a birthday gift quiet for three days is fun. A secret that feels heavy is not. These boundaries and personal safety reading comprehension passages help Grade 3 readers tell the two apart, across ten passages at F&P levels N–P that grow a little more demanding from start to finish. Whenever something feels wrong, the child says no or moves away and a trusted adult takes charge, a steady model for Relationship Skills.

What students practice

• Telling happy surprises from worried secrets
• Sorting touches into safe, unsafe and confusing
• Using the plan: say no, get away, tell
• Checking first and using a family code word
• Knowing safe places near school and helping keep younger kids safe

What’s inside

• 10 passages at F&P levels N–P in ten text types, among them a puppet’s story, a how-to guide and a student news feature
• 5 multiple-choice and 2 open-ended questions per passage, covering key details, inferences, word meanings and how each text is organized
• MCQ answer key on the last page
• 44 pages

A look inside

• The Puppet Who Sorted Touches: Thimble, a puppet with yellow yarn hair, helps a class sort picture cards under Safe, Unsafe and Confusing.
• I Wasn’t in Trouble for Telling: Wambui tells her mom about a video an older teen showed her at a family party, and her mom thanks her.
• How to Use a Family Code Word: what to do if an unexpected adult says they are picking you up and doesn’t know the word.
• The Playground Gate Problem: third graders tell the principal about a gate left open near the street and make reminder signs.

How to use these boundaries and personal safety reading passages in Grade 3

• Read Happy Surprises and Worried Secrets aloud together as SEL reading comprehension, then try its two sorting questions as a class
• Small groups or counselor sessions, for example with Say No, Get Away, Tell
• Solo reading, one passage per sitting, checked with the answer key

Grade fit

The set opens at level N and climbs to P with the class map of safe places and the profile of Teodora, the buddy-pairs helper in a walking group. Third graders are starting to walk with friends and visit classmates’ homes, and the check-first rule, the code word and the buddy rules speak to that new freedom. Questions on word meaning and text organization make these reading passages with questions real reading practice too.

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 I Wasn’t in Trouble for Telling, readers never learn what the video showed, only that it made Wambui feel scared, and her mom handles the rest. Thimble the Puppet explains that a touch to the parts a swimsuit covers is unsafe, apart from a grown-up helping you wash or a doctor’s check with your parent there.

Pairs well with

Two personal safety activities extend this set: Boundaries and Personal Safety Task Cards for short written follow-ups and Boundaries and Personal Safety Scenario Cards for talking through more situations.