What was the Pony Express? Find Out with a Free Comprehension Worksheet

🐎   The Pony Express began in 1860 when the United States Congress passed legislation to create a mail service that would deliver letters and packages quickly from Missouri to California. The Pony Express was an important part of American history because it changed the way Americans communicated with each other.

Integrate your Social studies curriculum into your reading block with our Pony Express reading comprehension activity. It consists of a one-page passage and a ten-question comprehension assessment

Tips for Differentiation + Scaffolding 

In addition to independent student work time, use this worksheet as an activity for:

• Guided writing groups
• Lesson warm-up
• Lesson wrap-up
• Fast finishers 
• Homework assignment
• Whole-class review (via smartboard)

Fast Finisher Activity

• Challenge your fast finishers to extend their topic into a research project or essay development activity. 

Support Struggling Students

• Support struggling writers or ESL students by providing sentence frames to aid them in constructing their sentences.
• Read the passage together and highlight ideas that could be used as evidence and supporting details.

Easily Download & Print

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to download the PDF version of this resource. 

To save paper, we suggest printing this 2-page worksheet double-sided. 

Additionally, project the worksheet onto a screen and work through it as a class by having students record their answers in their notebooks. 

This resource was created by Nicole Ellis, a teacher in New York, and Teach Starter Collaborator. 

Don’t stop there! We’ve got more activities to shorten your lesson planning time: