Endangered Species Reading Comprehension Article

Identify the natural and human causes that put an animal species at risk of becoming endangered.

Explain why a specific species (Giant Panda or Mountain Gorilla) is endangered, using evidence from the passage.

Research an additional endangered species not covered in the article and present findings in a poster or brochure.

The five core comprehension questions come with a complete answer key, but the three extension questions are open research/creative tasks with sample ideas supplied for the first — plan separate time or materials (poster paper, a brochure template) for those.

Both a Word document and a PDF version of the same article are included, so choose whichever format is easier to edit or distribute for your class.

Use the footnote vocabulary definitions (species, extinct, pesticides, habitat, poaching) as a pre-reading vocabulary preview before assigning the full passage.

Informational reading comprehension — students answer 5 questions that require locating and restating causes and examples from the passage.

Cause-and-effect reasoning — questions ask students to explain why specific species (Mountain Gorilla, Tasmanian tiger) became endangered or extinct.

Vocabulary in context — five terms (species, extinct, pesticides, habitat, poaching) are defined alongside the passage in which they appear.