Worksheets and No Prep Teaching Resources Reading Comprehension Worksheets Earth

Earth's Varied Topography Earth

---

Earth's Varied Topography
Print Earth's Varied Topography Reading Comprehension with Sixth Grade Work

Print Earth's Varied Topography Reading Comprehension

Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	high interest, readability grades 6 to 7
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	6.26

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		circum-Pacific, soils, topography, characteristic, desert-like, low-lying, directly, generally, interior, lowest, region, coastal, material, livestock, meters, tops
	content words:		Rocky Mountains, Pacific Ocean, North America, South America, Blue Ridge, Great Smoky Mountains, Appalachian Mountain System, United States, Great Plains, Midwestern United States

---

Earth's Varied Topography By Patti Hutchison

---

¹     Have you ever driven through Kansas? The land is very flat in all directions. As you drive westward and into Colorado, suddenly you see the Rocky Mountains rising out of the land. As you continue driving into Colorado, the mountains grow taller and more beautiful. How boring Earth would be if it were all flat land! Instead, we are lucky to have some interesting topography.
 
²     Topography is the shape of the Earth's surface. These different physical features found in certain areas are referred to as landscapes. There are three main types of landscape regions. They are: mountains, plains, and plateaus.
 
³     Each type of landscape region has different characteristics. One characteristic is elevation. This refers to its height above sea level. Mountain regions have a high elevation. Some regions have elevations that are different from place to place. These differences in elevation are called relief. If an area has a high relief, there is a big difference in elevation between the highest points and the lowest points.
 
⁴     Mountain landscapes cover about twenty percent of the Earth's surface. Most of these regions lie either below the ocean or near coastal areas of continents.
 
⁵     There are two major mountain belts on Earth. One is called the circum-Pacific belt. This belt circles the Pacific Ocean. It includes the Rockies in North America and the Andes in South America. Many others in this belt are found beneath the ocean. The Eurasian-Melanesian belt touches southern Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. It includes the Alps in Europe and the Himalayas in Asia.

Paragraphs 6 to 15:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

---

Weekly Reading Books

Create Weekly Reading Books Prepare for an entire week at once!

---

Feedback on Earth's Varied Topography

Leave your feedback on Earth's Varied Topography   (use this link if you found an error in the story)

---

Earth

Earth

---

More Lessons

Continents Activities, Worksheets, Printables, and Lesson Plans

Special Education Science Materials for Teachers

---

Science

Science

Careers in Science         Caring for Earth         Clouds         Dinosaurs         Earth's Land         Earth         Earthquakes         Electricity         Energy         Erosion         Food Pyramid         Food Webs and Food Chain         Forces and Motion         Fossils         Health and Nutrition         How Things Work         Landforms         Life Science         Light         Magnets         Matter

Moon         Natural Disasters         Photosynthesis         Plant and Animal Cells         Plants         Rocks and Minerals         Science Process Skills         Scientific Notation         Seasons         Simple Machines         Soil         Solar System         Sound         Space and Stars         Sun         Tsunami         Volcanoes         Water Cycle         Water         Weather

Copyright © 2025 edHelper