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Worksheet Grade 4 English Language Arts

Inside the Nettlecombe Pump Station: A Grade 4 Reading Worksheet

A grade 4 worksheet built on a short text about a fictional pump station that lifts water uphill, with detail, vocabulary, inference, and explanation items.

Objectives

  1. Students will locate stated details about how a pump station moves water uphill.
  2. Students will explain what a domain word means using the way the text uses it.
  3. Students will write two sentences that explain the station's job to a younger reader.

Vocabulary

Pump
A pump is a machine that adds energy to water to move it or push it uphill, doing the job gravity cannot do on its own. Water systems use many different kinds of pumps to move water from wells, through treatment, and out to customers.

Also: motor, check valve, pressure, alarm

Teacher overview

The Nettlecombe Pump Station is a fictional station written for this worksheet. It sits at the bottom of a hill and lifts treated water up to a neighborhood the town's main pipes cannot reach on their own. The ten items move from stated details toward inference and a short written explanation, so a teacher can see which students can find a fact and which ones can use it. A misconception worth naming before students read is that water in a pipe pushes uphill on its own once the pipe points that way, and a student still holding that idea will get item 9 wrong, which makes the item a useful check.

Inside the Nettlecombe Pump Station: A Grade 4 Reading Worksheet — Grade 4 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the text. Then answer items 1 through 10.

The Nettlecombe Pump Station

Water leaves the town plant and flows through wide pipes. Most of Nettlecombe sits low, so the water arrives with a good push. Workers call that push pressure. But Harkspur Hill sits high above the rest of the town. Water will not climb a hill on its own. So the town built a pump station at the bottom of the hill.

The station is a small brick building. Inside are two pumps. Each pump has a motor and a spinning part called an impeller. The motor spins the impeller fast. The spinning throws water into the pipe with more force. That added force is what lifts the water up Harkspur Hill.

Only one pump runs at a time. The two pumps take turns, week by week. Ms. Quintero is the operator who cares for the station. She says the resting pump is the spare. If one pump breaks on a hot day, she can start the other one in a minute.

Each pump has a check valve. A check valve is a flap that lets water go one way only. When a pump stops, gravity tries to pull the water back down the hill. The flap swings shut and blocks it. Without check valves, the water would slide back and the pumps would have to lift it twice.

A tank sits at the top of Harkspur Hill. When the tank gets low, a sensor sends a signal. The pump starts on its own and fills the tank again. If the tank keeps dropping anyway, an alarm rings on Ms. Quintero's phone. She drives to the station, even at night.

  1. What does the Nettlecombe Pump Station do for the Harkspur Hill neighborhood?
  2. Name the two parts of a pump that the text describes.
  3. What is a check valve, and what does it stop?
  4. Why does the station keep a second pump that is not running?
  5. The text says the two pumps take turns. What does that phrase mean here?
  6. What happens at the station when the tank at the top of the hill gets low?
  7. The station was built at the bottom of Harkspur Hill. Use a detail from the text to explain why the bottom is a sensible place for it.
  8. Find the word pressure in the text. What does pressure mean here?
  9. Would water still reach Harkspur Hill if both pumps stopped for a whole day? Use a detail from the text to explain your answer.
  10. Write two sentences that explain the pump station's job to a second grader. Use the word pressure in one of them.

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: It lifts water up the hill. The text says water will not climb a hill on its own, so the town built the station to push water up to Harkspur Hill.
  2. Answer: A motor and an impeller. The second paragraph names both and explains that the motor spins the impeller fast.
  3. Answer: A flap that lets water go one way only. It stops water from sliding back down the hill when a pump stops.
  4. Answer: So there is a spare if the running pump breaks. Ms. Quintero says she can start the other pump in a minute if one fails on a hot day.
  5. Answer: It means the pumps switch, week by week, so only one runs at a time. Accept any answer naming the weekly switch.
  6. Answer: A sensor sends a signal and the pump starts by itself to refill the tank. If the tank keeps dropping, an alarm rings on the operator's phone.
  7. Answer: Accept any answer built on the text. Water arrives from the plant with a good push at the low part of town, so the station can catch that water where it already is and add force before the climb.
  8. Answer: The push that moves water through the pipes. The text says water arrives in the low part of town with a good push, and that workers call that push pressure.
  9. Answer: No, not for long. Accept answers noting that the tank at the top would drain and nothing would refill it, since the pumps are what lift water up the hill.
  10. Answer: Accept any two clear sentences that use the word pressure correctly. A proficient response says the station adds pressure to the water and pushes it up the hill so the houses at the top can use it.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the text with the five paragraphs labeled by topic in the margin: pressure, pump parts, spare pump, check valve, and tank signal. Let them answer items 1 through 6 by copying the supporting sentence first and then writing their answer under it.

Extension

Ask students to write a short caption for a diagram of the station that shows the motor, the impeller, the check valve, and the tank. Each label needs one sentence explaining what that part does, and no sentence may repeat wording from the text.

ELL supports

Pre-teach pump, motor, valve, and spare with simple sketches, and demonstrate a check valve with a paper flap taped over a hole in a cup. Allow items 1 through 5 to be answered with short phrases, and provide a sentence frame for item 10.