Boundaries and Personal Safety Reading Comprehension Passages — Grade 4

About this resource

Is it okay to turn down a hug from a relative? Grade 4 readers get a clear yes in these boundaries and personal safety reading comprehension passages: ten texts at F&P levels Q–S on the safety questions that come with growing independence. The stories and articles model one steady response, say no, move away and tell a trusted adult, and mix Relationship Skills with dog, lightning and helmet safety.

What students practice

• Choosing how they are greeted, such as a high five instead of a hug
• Spotting tricky behavior, even from someone they know
• Trusting an uh-oh feeling and telling right away
• Matching a problem to the right helper
• Sorting moments into safe, unsafe or unsure

What’s inside

• 10 passages at F&P levels Q–S across ten text types, from a stuffed lion’s story to a report on Body Safety Week
• A plainly worded takeaway closing each passage
• 5 multiple-choice questions and 2 open-ended prompts per passage
• MCQ answer key on the last page
• 44 pages

A look inside

• Meet Yohannes: The Dog Safety Helper: a fourth grader whose parents run a dog-training class teaches younger kids to “be a tree” when a loose dog runs up.
• Tuuli Hears Thunder at the Ball Game: the coach stops play, and everyone waits 30 minutes after the last thunder.
• Safe Person or Tricky Person?: a safe adult respects your no and never asks you to keep secrets from your parents.
• The Stuffed Lion Who Learned About Privacy: a lion on a shelf watches its girl ask her family to knock first.

How to use these boundaries and personal safety reading passages in Grade 4

• Guided reading groups, starting with Yohannes at level Q
• Counseling lessons or SEL reading comprehension built around Safe Person or Tricky Person? or When My Uh-Oh Feeling Was Right
• Partner work, with the two open-ended prompts as the talk
• A quiet review before a safety assembly, for example with Counselor Leads Body Safety Week at Hillcrest

Grade fit

Fourth graders are trusted with more on their own, and the questions here match that stage: which grown-up to go to, what to do when someone they know acts in a tricky way, when to ask for privacy. Levels move from Q to S, and the science piece on how helmet foam and the skull protect the brain adds solid informational reading to these reading passages with questions.

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

Tricky behavior is taught through clues, not events: whether a person respects a no, keeps your family in the loop and checks before changing plans. In When My Uh-Oh Feeling Was Right, a friend’s older brother asks Thomasina to help look for a puppy without telling her mom; she says no, goes inside and tells her, and the story never says what he meant.

Pairs well with

To practice the choices, try Boundaries and Personal Safety What Would You Do? Cards or Boundaries and Personal Safety Worksheets — Multiple-Choice Scenarios, two personal safety activities built on decisions.