Why the Moon Seems to Change Shape: Reading Comprehension Worksheet

Read the passage

The same text as the printed sheet, with the same paragraph numbers the questions refer to — for reading aloud from a screen or a board.

1. On some nights the Moon looks like a big, round circle. A week later it might look like half a circle, or a thin, curved sliver. The Moon itself never changes shape. What changes is how much of its bright side we can see.
2. The Moon does not make any light of its own. It shines because sunlight bounces off it. At every moment, the Sun lights up the half of the Moon that faces it. The other half is dark.
3. The Moon travels all the way around Earth about once a month. As it moves, we see it from a slightly different angle each night. When the Moon is roughly between Earth and the Sun, its lit half faces away from us, and we can hardly see it at all. This is called a new moon. About two weeks later, the Moon is on the far side of Earth from the Sun. Now the whole lit half faces us, and we see a full moon.
4. In between, we see only part of the lit half. A thin sliver of light is called a crescent. When the bright part grows a little more each night, the Moon is waxing. When it shrinks, the Moon is waning. Then the whole pattern begins again.

The questions

The answers, and the paragraph each one comes from, are on the last page of the PDF — not here, so a student reading on screen cannot see them.

1. Why does the Moon shine?
   1. It makes its own light.
   2. Sunlight bounces off it.
   3. Lights on Earth shine on it.
   4. It is made of hot, glowing rock.
2. What is true about a new moon?
   1. Earth's shadow covers the whole Moon.
   2. The Moon has stopped moving for a few days.
   3. The Moon's lit half faces away from Earth.
   4. Clouds hide the Moon from view.
3. In paragraph 4, what does waxing mean?
   1. getting smaller
   2. getting bigger
   3. staying the same
   4. changing color
4. Tonight the Moon is full. About how long will it be until the next new moon?
   1. one night
   2. roughly two weeks
   3. about six months
   4. a year
5. Is the Moon waxing or waning in the days right after a new moon? Explain how you know. (written answer)

How the reading level was set

This passage was written to the Grades 3–4 band: Sentences of about eleven to fifteen words on average, a few subject words (forager, crescent) defined in context, and paragraphs that each develop one step of an explanation, so a reader has to follow a sequence rather than a single fact. The band is a judgement, not a readability score — no Lexile measure or grade-level formula has been applied. These are the counts it rests on, taken from the text itself:

Words:

212

Sentences:

19

Average sentence:

11.2 words

Longest sentence:

25 words

Words of seven letters or more:

7%

Sources for the facts in this passage

The passage is original writing, not an excerpt or an adaptation. Its facts were checked against these pages:

• NASA Science — Moon Phases — The Moon makes no light of its own and reflects sunlight; it is always half lit; how much of the lit half we see changes as it orbits Earth, about once a month; at new moon the lit side faces away from Earth; a crescent is a thin sliver; the lit part grows while waxing and shrinks while waning.

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Or see every passage, grouped by reading level, on the reading comprehension worksheets page.