Bar Chart Reading Worksheets

A chart, then questions about it

The sheet draws a labelled bar chart from three to eight categories on the topic you choose, then prints reading questions underneath: which bar is largest, which is smallest, the difference between them, the total of everything, and combined values for named pairs.

An answer key prints on request.

Reading a chart is a separate skill from drawing one

Children spend a lot of time constructing bar charts and comparatively little interrogating them, and the two are not the same.

Drawing a chart is a procedure: measure, scale, rule, shade. Reading one is inference — you have to work out what the axis increments are, decide what a bar between two gridlines represents, and hold two values in mind while you compare them. The second is the skill that carries into a newspaper, a science paper or a set of election results.

The question types, in order of difficulty

Largest and smallest need no arithmetic at all. They are comparisons by eye, and they are where a struggling pupil can succeed.

The difference requires reading two values accurately and subtracting. This is where axis misreading shows up, and the error is usually the scale rather than the subtraction.

The total is the slowest question and the one that most often goes wrong, because it needs every bar read correctly. One misread bar and the answer is out.

Combined value of two named categories is the first step towards grouping data, which every later statistics question depends on.

Every bar has a different height

Values are generated distinct from one another, so there is never a tie for the largest or smallest bar.

That matters because the answer key prints one category name. A tie would leave two correct answers with only one of them on the key, and a pupil who picked the other would be marked wrong for being right.

Getting the most out of it

Ask a question the sheet does not: what would this chart look like if one category doubled? Which two bars together are worth more than the largest one? What is missing from this chart that you would want to know?

That last one is the useful one for older pupils. A bar chart with no sample size, no time period and no source is a chart you cannot actually conclude anything from, and noticing that is more valuable than reading the bars correctly.

Setting it up

Number of bars (3–8), the topic, how many questions (3–6), the answer key, a title and Name and Date fields. A4 or US Letter.

Three bars suits Year 2. Eight fills the chart and makes the total question a genuine piece of work.

For the same exercise on other chart types, there is a pie chart version and a line graph version. Print at 100%.