Reading

Free Printable Author’s Purpose Worksheet Bundle (3 Activities)

Learn to think more deeply about why an author writes a text.

Two printable Author's Purpose worksheets for K-5
We Are Teachers; Myranda McDonald
By Jill Staake, B.S., Secondary ELA Education
Jun 17, 2024

One key factor in truly understanding a text is considering the author’s purpose, or why they chose to write a particular text. Learn more about author’s purpose here, then grab your free printable Author’s Purpose worksheet bundle with three fun and engaging activities. Just fill out the form on this page for immediate access!

Plus check out our Author’s Purpose Teaching Guide.

Rotating animated GIF showing three different Author's Purpose printable worksheets
We Are Teachers; Myranda McDonald

Author’s Purpose Worksheet Bundle

Kids start learning author’s purpose early in elementary school when they learn to identify the high-level categories (usually just “persuade, inform, and entertain”). As they get older, they examine author’s purposes more closely (including the categories of “explain” and “describe”), determining how those motives affect a reader’s analysis of the text. (Find 5 Ways to Go Beyond PIE here.)

Start by creating and hanging some author’s purpose anchor charts. Then, try these meaningful author’s purpose activities and ideas to teach this key reading comprehension topic. Don’t forget to grab our free printable set of author’s purpose activities, which includes all of the activities shown here.

Author's purpose worksheet called Eat some PIE with a picture of a pie divided into three parts
We Are Teachers; Myranda McDonald

Eat some PIE

This acronym is a classic way to teach author’s purpose to younger students. Kids color, cut out, and paste pieces of pie onto a paper plate to represent Persuade, Inform, and Entertain. (Grades K–2)

Author's Purpose graphic organizer called Get PIE'ED with room to write notes for each major type of purpose
We Are Teachers; Myranda McDonald

Get PIE’ED

This graphic organizer helps older students understand the five major types of author’s purpose. It offers places to write a definition as well as examples that you can brainstorm together as a class. There’s also room to write the cues readers can look for to identify each type. (Grades 3–5)

Author's Purpose Scavenger Hunt printable worksheet with room to write the title of a book, the author's purpose, and notes
We Are Teachers; Myranda McDonald

Author’s Purpose Scavenger Hunt

Take kids to the library or give them (safe) access to the Internet. Then, ask them to find examples of books, articles, or other texts that match each type of purpose. The first page of this printable asks for texts that fit one category (persuade, inform, entertain, explain, describe), while the second page includes combinations of these five purposes. This helps drive home the idea that many authors have multiple purposes in mind when they write. (Grades 4–8)

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