Free Fill-in-the-Blank Worksheets
Free instant PDF — no signup, no watermark, no cap on how much text you paste. The preview above is exactly what prints, and the answer key with the full passage restored is page two of the same file.
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Paste your passage into the box — a paragraph from a reader, a science summary, a set of sentences you wrote yourself. Choose how the blanks are picked: every Nth word, the key content words, or exactly the words you type. Turn the word bank on or off, and add decoy words if you want to make elimination harder. The preview updates instantly and shows the exact sheet you'll get. Click Download PDF and print; the answer key with the whole passage restored comes in the same file.
What's included on each worksheet
Every sheet is a full page with a name and date line at the top, your passage set double-spaced with a numbered write-on line in place of each removed word, and — if you want one — a word bank above it. Blanks are drawn as wide as the word they replaced, so the length of the line is a real clue rather than a uniform gap. Punctuation always stays on the page: a blank never swallows the comma or full stop that followed the word. Long passages flow onto as many pages as they need, and each one is answer-keyed. The key repeats the sheet line for line with every answer written in blue, so you can hold the two pages up together and check a class set in one pass.
Tips for using cloze passages
- Use a passage the class has already read once. A cloze sheet measures how well a reader holds the meaning of a text; handing out an unseen passage measures guessing instead.
- Start with the word bank on. Recalling from a list is a different and much easier task than recalling from nothing, and moving from one to the other is a useful ladder within the same passage.
- For vocabulary practice, use the key content words and type the words you have been teaching into the list. For a reading check, use every Nth word instead — it removes function words too, which is what makes it a test of following the sentence rather than of vocabulary.
- Print the same passage twice, once with a bank and once without, and give the harder copy to the students who finished early. It costs nothing and it is the same text, so you can compare the two.
- Add decoys once students are confident. Three is enough to stop the last two blanks being filled in by process of elimination, which is where a word bank quietly stops testing anything.
- Read the finished sheet aloud before you print a class set. If a blank has two defensible answers, edit that sentence in the passage — it is faster than arguing about it while marking.
Customization options
Passage
Paste up to about 6,000 characters — roughly four full worksheet pages. Blank lines between paragraphs are kept, so a passage with structure prints with that structure. Nothing you paste is uploaded anywhere: the PDF is built in your own browser.
Which words to blank
Every Nth word removes a word at a fixed interval, the classic cloze reading procedure. Key content words skips the little joining words and removes the longest, most meaningful ones. Words I choose removes exactly what you type, every time it appears — and a whole phrase becomes one blank rather than one per word.
How many blanks
On the every-Nth setting, pick the interval: every 3rd, 5th, 7th, or 10th word. On key content words, pick light, medium, or heavy — about one word in eight, one in five, or one in three. With your own word list, your list decides.
Word bank and decoys
The bank prints above the passage with every removed word listed once, shuffled. Add 3, 6, or 10 decoy words to stop students finishing by elimination; every decoy is checked against every real answer, so one can never turn out to be right, and they are drawn from the same length band as the real answers rather than being obviously wrong on sight. Turn the bank off entirely for a recall sheet.
Text size
Small, medium, or large. Larger type opens up the lines for early readers and for students who need room to write; smaller type fits a longer passage onto one page. The blanks are the same words either way — changing the size re-flows the sheet, it does not regenerate it.
Paper size
US Letter (8.5 × 11 inches) or A4 (210 × 297 mm). The passage is re-flowed to the width of whichever sheet you choose, so nothing is stretched or clipped.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a fill-in-the-blank worksheet?
Paste your passage into the box, choose how the blanks are picked, and the worksheet appears instantly. You can blank every Nth word, let the tool pick the key content words and skip the little joining words, or type exactly the words you want removed. Then choose whether to print a word bank and click Download PDF. The answer key with the whole passage restored is page two of the same file.
Is there a limit on how much text I can paste?
No sentence limit and no paragraph limit. Paste up to about 6,000 characters — roughly four full worksheet pages — and long passages simply flow onto more pages, each one with its own matching answer key. There is no signup, no email, no ad-block penalty, and nothing is held back for a paid tier.
Can I choose which words get blanked out?
Yes. Pick “Words I choose” and type them, separated by commas. Every occurrence of each word in the passage becomes a blank. You do not have to click each word one at a time, and you do not have to hunt through a long passage to find the repeats.
Can I blank out a phrase, not just a single word?
Yes — type the whole phrase in the word list and it becomes one blank, not one blank per word. “Water cycle” or “Costa Rica” prints as a single line of the right length, and the answer key restores the whole phrase. There is no underscore trick to remember.
What is a word bank on a cloze worksheet?
It is the box of words printed above the passage, so students choose from a list instead of recalling from nothing. Every removed word appears in it exactly once, even if it was blanked several times, and the order is shuffled so the bank does not give away which blank each word belongs to. You can turn the bank off for a harder sheet.
What are the extra wrong words for?
They are decoys. Adding 3, 6, or 10 of them mixes words into the bank that fit nothing on the page, so a student cannot finish the sheet by elimination alone. Each decoy is checked against every real answer so it can never accidentally be correct, and they are picked to be about the same length as the real answers rather than obviously out of place.
Is there an answer key?
Yes — the pages after the worksheet are the answer key, with every blank filled in and printed in blue so you can tell the two apart across a desk. The key is laid out on exactly the same lines as the worksheet, so you can hold the two pages up together and every answer lines up with its blank. If you used decoys, the key greys them out in the word bank so you can see which bank words were fakes.
What is a cloze worksheet?
Cloze is the classroom name for this kind of exercise: a passage with words removed that a reader fills back in from context. Blanking every Nth word is the original cloze procedure, used to gauge how well a reader can follow a text. Blanking the content words instead turns the same passage into vocabulary or comprehension practice.
Will I get the same worksheet if I come back?
Yes. The same passage and the same settings always produce the same blanks, the same decoys, and the same word bank order, so you can print a class set today and another identical set next week. Change the passage or the strategy and you get a genuinely different sheet.
What paper size do these print on?
US Letter (8.5 × 11 inches) or A4 (210 × 297 mm), and the passage is re-flowed to fit whichever you choose rather than being scaled or clipped. Three text sizes let you fit more words on a page or open the lines up for early readers.
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- Printable lined paperRuled and handwriting paper for writing the answers out.