TeachKind Rescue Stories: Jake’s Recovery

Stories of people helping animals are all over the internet, and sharing them with your students is an excellent way to encourage kindness both in and out of the classroom. Because most children naturally feel compassion for animals, sharing rescue stories is a great way to engage and motivate different types of learners and encourage them to take action to help end animal abuse.

Each TeachKind Rescue Stories reading comprehension worksheet tells a different animal’s tale of transformation and features key vocabulary words and questions in order to encourage literal, inferential, and evaluative thinking. These worksheets were used in a study that found that students who read passages about having compassion for animals performed significantly better on Common Core–aligned assessments, demonstrating that instructional time need not be sacrificed in order to instill empathy in young people!

This rescue story centers around Jake, a handsome turkey from North Carolina.

Have your students read his story for a quick warm-up or closing activity, or use other TeachKind resources to expand this activity into an entire lesson. You can use this worksheet to address the following Common Core English language arts standards:

Grade 3

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.1
  Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

Grade 4

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1
  Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Grade 5

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.1
  Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Download this rescue story reading comprehension worksheet!

Sharing true stories of rescued animals is a powerful way to teach empathy while still covering grade-level reading skills. Jake’s recovery story follows a turkey from hardship to care and gives students an accessible narrative they can connect with emotionally and intellectually. This TeachKind rescue passage is paired with vocabulary support and comprehension questions designed to prompt literal, inferential, and evaluative thinking, so teachers can meet Common Core ELA objectives while encouraging kindness.

Use the worksheet as a quick warm-up, closing activity, or as the foundation for a multi-day humane-education mini-unit that includes discussion prompts, writing tasks, and cross-curricular extensions in science or social studies. Jake’s story is especially effective for diverse learners because it taps into students’ natural compassion and can be adapted for reading groups, read-alouds, or independent work.

Educators can also link this material with broader classroom goals—bullying prevention, community service projects, or creative writing assignments—to deepen student engagement and foster a classroom culture centered on respect for animals and others

Like these ideas? Please share them to inspire other teachers to incorporate compassion for animals into their curricula!