Line Graph Reading Worksheets

A graph, and three questions about it

Labelled x and y axes with tick values on both, a line joining plotted points, and small circles marking each point so a pupil can see exactly where to read from.

The three questions are always the same three, and that is deliberate. Read a value straight off the line. Identify the highest point. Work out the difference between two points. Between them they cover reading a single value, comparing values, and doing arithmetic on values, which is the whole of graph reading at this level.

One or two graphs a page. Four to eight points on each.

The finger technique

Start at the x position on the bottom axis. Move straight up until you meet the line. Then go across to the y axis and read the number.

Teach it as a physical movement with an actual finger, because the error children make is not arithmetic, it is drifting diagonally across the page and landing between two gridlines. A finger tracking up and then across cannot drift. Once the movement is automatic the reading becomes accurate, and it stays accurate on a graph with no gridlines at all.

The highest point is the tallest peak, and the useful follow-up question is where it happens rather than what it is, because that is the one that requires reading the x axis.

The y-axis maximum is the difficulty

It runs from 5 up to 100. Set it low, to 10 or 20, and the values land on clear gridlines and a child reads whole numbers straight off.

Push it to 100 and the gridlines are further apart in value, so a point sitting between two of them has to be estimated. That is a genuinely different skill and worth introducing on purpose rather than by accident: the first time a child has to answer about 65 rather than exactly 65, they need to be told that is allowed.

Point count does something similar. Four points is a simple shape. Eight is a line with a peak, a dip and a recovery in it, and questions about trend start to make sense.

Building it up

One graph, a low maximum, four points. Then more points. Then a higher scale.

Two graphs on a page opens a different question type entirely: which line rises faster, which peaks earlier, which is more consistent. None of those are on the printed sheet, and all of them are worth asking out loud once pupils have finished the three that are.

Then plot a real one. Daily temperature over a fortnight, or a bean plant measured every morning. Ask the same three questions about their own graph and the connection between the worksheet and the reason anyone draws graphs at all becomes visible.

Marking

The answer key lists the value at every plotted point as well as the worked answer to each question, so a disagreement can be traced to whichever point was misread instead of simply being marked wrong.

Press Generate New for a completely different graph at the same settings. Thirty pupils, thirty graphs, nothing to copy.