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Reading passage Grade 1 Careers & CTE

The Bug Watcher at Catalpa Road: A Grade 1 Water Job Read-Aloud

A grade 1 read-aloud about a plant worker who checks tiny living things under a microscope to keep the water leaving the plant clean, with seven questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain what the tiny living things in the tanks do for the water.
  2. Students will describe two things the bug watcher checks under the microscope.
  3. Students will write one fact about a job at a water cleaning plant.

Vocabulary

Key words: plant, tank, bubble, microscope

Teacher overview

The plant that cleans water after it goes down the drain does most of its work with living things rather than machines, and somebody has to look after them. This read-aloud follows Nell, who checks a drop of tank water under a microscope every day at the fictional plant on Catalpa Road and turns the air up or down depending on what she sees. The passage stays with what a first grader can picture: a jar of tank water, one drop on a piece of glass, and shapes that move at different speeds. If a classroom microscope or a magnifying glass is available, put it on the table during the second reading.

The Bug Watcher at Catalpa Road: A Grade 1 Water Job Read-Aloud — Grade 1 Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Read aloud to the class. Read it twice.

Nell works at a plant on Catalpa Road. It is not the plant that makes drinking water. It is the plant that cleans the water after it goes down the drain.

Water from every sink and tub in town comes to this plant in a big pipe.

Outside there are wide round tanks. The water in them looks brown. Air bubbles up through it all day long. The bubbles are for the bugs.

The bugs are tiny living things. Nell calls them bugs, but they are much too small to see. There are more of them in one tank than anyone could count. They eat the dirty bits in the water. That is their whole job.

Nell takes a jar of water from a tank. She puts one drop on a small piece of glass. Then she looks at the drop under a microscope.

Nell knows the bugs by their shapes. Some spin in circles. Some crawl along. Some sit still.

When the bugs move fast, the water is doing well. When they move slowly, something is wrong. Then Nell turns the air up. The next day she looks again.

At the end the clean water goes back to the creek. The bugs stay in the tank. They get to work on the next batch.

Nell learned this job at the plant. Another worker showed her the shapes one at a time. Now she can name them in a second.

Questions

The teacher reads each question aloud.

  1. What does the plant on Catalpa Road clean?
  2. What bubbles up through the tanks all day?
  3. What do the tiny bugs eat?
  4. What does Nell use to look at one drop of water?
  5. The bugs are moving slowly today. What does Nell do?
  6. Why do the bugs stay in the tank when the clean water leaves?
  7. Name Nell's job. Write or dictate one fact about it. End with one sentence about the creek.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: The water after it goes down the drain. The passage says it is not the drinking water plant and that water from every sink and tub in town arrives in a big pipe.
  2. Answer: Air. The passage says air bubbles up through the tanks all day long and that the bubbles are for the bugs.
  3. Answer: The dirty bits in the water. The passage says eating those is the bugs' whole job.
  4. Answer: A microscope. The passage says she puts one drop on a small piece of glass and looks at it under the microscope.
  5. Answer: She turns the air up. The passage says slow bugs mean something is wrong, so she raises the air and looks again the next day.
  6. Answer: So they can clean the next batch of water. The passage says the bugs get to work on the next batch after the clean water goes to the creek.
  7. Answer: Answers vary. Accept "she watches the bugs" or "she works at the water cleaning plant," one fact such as "she looks at a drop under a microscope," and a closing sentence such as "The creek stays cleaner because of her."

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Read the passage a third time in two halves, stopping after the microscope paragraph to ask questions 1 through 4. Offer two spoken choices for each of those four and accept a single word or a pointed finger.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask these students to write what Nell would see and do on a day when the bugs were spinning fast, and to explain in one sentence why turning the air up would be the wrong move that day.

ELL supports

Put a magnifying glass and a clear cup of water on the table and let students look at a drop before the reading, so drop, glass, and look attach to something they have done. Pre-teach tank, bubble, and drain with a simple drawing of a sink, a pipe, and a round tank. Accept single-word answers for questions 1 through 4.

Extensions

Have an adult fill a jar with pond or puddle water, let it sit a day, and look at a drop through a magnifying glass or a classroom microscope. A classroom drop will look less clear than what Nell describes, which is worth naming for students, since practice is what makes the shapes recognizable to her. Nobody drinks the water, and students wash their hands after handling it.