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Reading passage Grade 2 Careers & CTE

Rosa Reads the Rain Gauge at Jasper Hill

A grade 2 read-aloud passage about a fictional rain watcher whose morning gauge readings tell the town's water plant how much rain fell overnight.

Objectives

  1. Students will answer who, what, where, and why questions about a rain watcher's job.
  2. Students will explain why the water plant wants to know how much rain fell.

Vocabulary

Reservoir
A human-made lake, usually created by a dam, that stores water for later. Reservoirs supply cities and farms and help control floods.

Also: rain gauge, measure, report

Teacher overview

This short read-aloud passage introduces the work of measuring rainfall and reporting it. Rosa Villalobos works for the town of Jasper Hill, a fictional town built for this passage, and her morning route is six rain gauges and one phone call. The passage works well before or after a water cycle unit, because it shows rain being measured and recorded by a person rather than simply falling.

Rosa Reads the Rain Gauge at Jasper Hill — Grade 2 Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

The teacher reads aloud:

Rosa gets up before the sun. She works for the town of Jasper Hill. Her job is to measure the rain.

Rosa drives to six rain gauges. A rain gauge is a tall tube with lines on the side. Rain falls into the tube all night. In the morning the water sits inside, and the lines show how deep it is.

Rosa lifts the first tube and holds it up. She reads the line where the water stops. Today it says two inches. She writes the number in her book. Then she tips the tube out and sets it back.

She does the same thing at all six gauges. Some tubes hold more. Some hold less. Rain does not fall the same way over a whole town.

Back in her truck, Rosa calls the water plant. She tells the crew what fell at each gauge. The crew writes her numbers on a big board.

Why do they want to know? The town keeps water in a reservoir behind the plant. Rain fills it back up. When Rosa reports a wet week, the crew knows the reservoir is filling up. When she reports a dry week, the crew tells the town to go easy on the water.

Rosa likes the quiet part of the morning. She likes knowing that six small numbers help a whole town plan its day.

Questions

  1. Who is Rosa, and what is her job?
  2. What is a rain gauge?
  3. Where does Rosa go each morning?
  4. Why does Rosa call the water plant?
  5. What does the crew do when Rosa reports a dry week?
  6. Rosa says six small numbers help a whole town. Tell what she means.

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: Rosa works for the town of Jasper Hill, and her job is to measure the rain. The opening of the passage names her town and her job.
  2. Answer: A tall tube with lines on the side that catches rain, so the lines show how deep the water is. The second paragraph describes the tube and the lines.
  3. Answer: She drives to six rain gauges around the town. The passage says she visits all six before going back to her truck.
  4. Answer: She calls to report how much rain fell at each gauge, and the crew writes her numbers on a big board. That is what she does after the last gauge.
  5. Answer: They tell the town to go easy on the water, because the reservoir is not being filled back up. The passage pairs the dry week with that message.
  6. Answer: Her six gauge readings tell the plant whether the reservoir is filling, and the plant uses that to decide what to tell the town, so a few numbers guide many people's choices.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Read the passage twice, stopping after each paragraph to ask one question aloud. Give students a simple drawing of a rain gauge to hold while they listen, and accept spoken answers to items 1 through 4 before anything is written.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask students to write two more questions Rosa's crew might ask her on the phone, then answer them using only what the passage says. Strong readers can also explain why one town needs more than one gauge.

ELL supports

Pre-teach gauge, inch, reservoir, and report with a sketch of each on the board. Point to the matching sketch each time the word appears in the read-aloud. Allow answers to be given by pointing to a sketch plus one word before a full sentence is asked for.

Extensions

Set a straight-sided jar outside the classroom window, mark it in inches with tape, and read it each morning for a week the way Rosa does. Post the numbers where the class can see them build up.