Paraphrase Pairs

This worksheet supports students in Grades 5 and 6 as they strengthen paraphrasing accuracy and reading comprehension through careful comparison of sentence meaning. Learners match original sentences with their correct paraphrased versions presented in random order, requiring close reading, analytical thinking, and attention to how meaning is preserved even when wording and structure change significantly.

Learning Goals

• Paraphrasing & Rewording Skills (Grades 5-6) – Students identify rewritten sentences that accurately maintain the original meaning.
• Sentence Meaning & Interpretation – Learners analyze how vocabulary choices and sentence structure affect meaning.
• Critical Comparison Skills – Students distinguish accurate paraphrases from options that distort or partially change the idea.
• Language Flexibility Awareness – Reinforces that the same idea can be expressed in multiple correct ways.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to align with upper-elementary ELA standards.
• Engaging Matching Format – Encourages active reading and comparison rather than surface-level guessing.
• Supports Academic Writing – Helps students recognize strong paraphrasing, an essential skill for summaries, essays, and research.
• Flexible Classroom Use – Ideal for literacy centers, independent practice, review lessons, or formative assessment.

This paraphrase pairs worksheet helps students build precision and confidence in interpreting and rewording sentences. By matching originals to accurate paraphrases, learners sharpen comprehension, analytical reasoning, and awareness of language structure. Whether used in a classroom or homeschool setting, this printable resource offers meaningful, low-prep practice that strengthens paraphrasing skills and deep understanding of sentence meaning.

This worksheet is part of our Paraphrasing Worksheets Collection.