Sample The Space Needle (Grades 2-4) Worksheet
Reading Comprehension Worksheets

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The Space Needle
By Shannon Jackson 		  
1     "When are we ever going to get to drive onto the ferry, Daddy?" Katie was so excited, she could hardly stand it. Katie had been studying the skyline of Seattle, the Emerald City, her dad called it, for the three months since they'd moved to Port Orchard. Her family had moved here, because her dad was now stationed in Bremerton. He was a Chief in the Navy.
 
2     All of a sudden her dad started the engine and followed the cars in front of them. They were directed by a lady in an orange vest. After parking the car, the Kelly family went up the steps of the ferry onto the deck to get a quick snack. The ferry ride would last an hour.
 
3     Katie took out the book she had borrowed from the library. She had first checked it out after moving to Port Orchard. When she had asked her mom about the Space Needle, her mom had been too busy unpacking to answer her questions. Katie knew the next best place to find the answers to her questions would be the local library.
 
4     Katie had read about how concrete had been poured into a hole that was 30 feet deep and 120 feet across. It had taken 467 concrete trucks an entire day just to fill the hole. When the 605-foot tall Space Needle was completed, it became the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. Katie hoped that her family would someday be able to go to dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top. It would be so cool to watch the scenery change during the hour it took the restaurant to go all the way around.
 
5     For today, she would be happy with seeing Lake Union and Elliot Bay, Mt. Rainier, the Cascade Mountain Range, the Olympic Mountain Range, and the big cranes that they unload ships with down on the waterfront. She had made her mom promise she could come back in winter, because it is said that when the elevator takes you back down—it looks like the snow is falling up! The elevator ride today would be awesome—it would be traveling 10 miles per hour, 14 feet per second, 800 feet per minute, which happens to be as fast as a raindrop falls to earth.
 
6     Now Katie was skimming through the book quickly, because she had read it cover to cover at least 7 times. She just wanted to be sure everything was fresh in her mind when she finally got to step onto the flying saucer-shaped observation deck in real life. She'd been staring at it all this time, grabbing the binoculars, for a closer look, when she was allowed to.
 
7     The first time she had read the book, she had been wondering what could be at the top of the Space Needle. What adventures might be waiting at the top of that "needle?" And why did everyone call it a "Space Needle?" What did it have to do with space? It didn't look much like a needle, either.
 
8     Now she had a few answers to some of those questions. She knew that the space needle had been built in 1962 for the World's Fair in Seattle. The theme of the fair was Century 21, Man in Space, and the Space Needle had been built with a space-age image in mind. "Luke, did you know the Space Needle was supposed to have a balloon-shaped top house?"

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