Free Grade 6 Reading Comprehension Worksheet & Answers

For centuries, the ancient Egyptian writing system known as hieroglyphics was a complete mystery. Scholars could look at the intricate pictures carved into temple walls, but no one knew how to read them. That changed in 1799 when French soldiers building a fort near the town of Rosetta discovered a large, dark gray stone slab. The “Rosetta Stone” contained the same royal decree written in three different scripts: ancient Greek, Demotic (a later Egyptian script), and hieroglyphics. Because scholars already knew how to read ancient Greek, they could use it as a translation key. In 1822, a brilliant French linguist named Jean-François Champollion finally cracked the code, unlocking thousands of years of ancient Egyptian history.

Elara wiped the grease from her forehead and stared at the mechanical bird resting on her workbench. It was a masterpiece of clockwork engineering, crafted from polished brass and tiny copper gears. For three weeks, she had tried to bring the automaton to life, but the intricate spring mechanism refused to catch. Sighing, she picked up a specialized magnifying glass and peered into the sparrow’s hollow chest. Deep inside, a single cog was jammed against a coiled wire. With a pair of delicate tweezers, Elara nudged the cog into place and inserted the winding key. A rapid clicking sound filled the room, followed by a beautiful, metallic chirping.

In nature, a “keystone species” is an animal that holds an entire ecosystem together. The gray wolf is a perfect example. In the 1920s, wolves were entirely wiped out in Yellowstone National Park by hunters. Without wolves to hunt them, the elk population exploded. The massive herds of elk ate all the young willow and aspen trees along the riverbanks. Without trees, songbirds lost their habitats, and beavers had no wood to build dams. In 1995, scientists reintroduced 14 wolves to the park. The wolves kept the elk moving, allowing the forests to recover. As the trees grew back, the birds and beavers returned, proving how interconnected nature truly is.

Before electronic computers existed, NASA employed brilliant mathematicians known as “human computers” to calculate flight paths for spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of the most exceptional mathematicians at the agency. During the 1960s Space Race, Johnson calculated the exact trajectory needed to send the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, into space. Later, when NASA began using mechanical computers, astronaut John Glenn refused to fly his orbit around the Earth until Johnson personally verified the machine’s calculations. Her unparalleled skill with geometry and physics helped ensure the success of the early Apollo missions.

In 1969, the precursor to the modern internet, a network called ARPANET, was established by the United States Department of Defense. The goal was to allow multiple computers to communicate with each other over long distances. On October 29, 1969, a student programmer at UCLA attempted to send the first-ever message to a computer at the Stanford Research Institute. He tried to type the word “LOGIN.” He typed the “L” and the “O,” but before he could type the “G,” the system crashed. Therefore, the very first message sent over the early internet was simply the word “LO.”