TeachKind Rescue Stories: ‘Saving Samson’

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.

Students will feel inspired after reading about Samson, a beagle who was imprisoned inside Envigo’s massive breeding factory in Cumberland, Virginia, which supplied dogs to the National Institutes of Health for experimentation. Thanks to the work of PETA’s investigator, Samson now enjoys the safety and comfort of a loving home.

Animal shelters around the U.S. helped thousands of beagles who had been liberated from Envigo find loving homes. Many adoptions made the news, so your students may already be familiar with the story.

Your students could read Samson’s story and answer the comprehension questions, and you could use the author’s purpose graphic organizer and main idea worksheet to extend the activity. This reading comprehension passage is geared toward grades 3–5 and is great for English language learners, too.

Interested in receiving a free class presentation from a neuroscientist? Dr. Katherine Roe, chief of the Science Advancement & Outreach division within the Laboratory Investigations Department at PETA, is available to speak with interested students and to answer their questions about vivisection. Email Info@teachkind.org to learn more.