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Worksheet Grade 5 English Language Arts

Text Features in the Hobbsfield Farm Drip Irrigation Guide

A grade 5 ELA worksheet that sends students to the title, subheadings, caption, glossary box, and note of a farm watering guide to find and quote exact answers.

Objectives

  1. Students will use subheadings, a caption, a glossary box, and a note to locate information.
  2. Students will copy the exact sentence from a guide that answers a question.
  3. Students will explain why a stated reason is not supported by the guide.

Vocabulary

Drip irrigation
Watering plants through tubes that release water slowly, drop by drop, right at the roots. Very little water is wasted along the way.

Also: subheading, caption, glossary, emitter

Teacher overview

Students work from a one-page watering guide written for the crew at Hobbsfield Farm, a fictional vegetable farm that waters its rows with drip tubing. The guide carries a title, three subheadings, a captioned diagram, a glossary box, and a note in the margin, and every question sends students to a named part of it rather than to the page as a whole.

Teaching note: many fifth graders read an informational page straight through from the top, which means they scan four paragraphs to answer a question the subheading would have pointed to in seconds. Watch for students who answer item 2 correctly but then hunt line by line for item 3 instead of reading only under the subheading they just named. Naming that habit aloud, and timing a second question after students have practiced using the subheadings, usually does more than a lesson on text features in the abstract.

Text Features in the Hobbsfield Farm Drip Irrigation Guide — Grade 5 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the guide. Then answer the questions below it.

Watering the Rows: A Short Guide for the Hobbsfield Farm Crew

What drip irrigation is

Drip irrigation sends water through thin tubes laid along each row. Small holes let the water drip out close to the roots. The soil stays damp right where the plant needs it. Less water is lost to the air than with a sprinkler.

Setting the lines

Lay one tube down the middle of each row. Push the stakes in every ten feet. Keep the holes facing up so dirt does not clog them.

Diagram caption: A tube runs the length of the row. Water drips from the small holes beside each plant. The dark area under the plant shows the wet soil.

Glossary box: Words to know

Emitter: the small hole or fitting that lets the water drip out. Filter: the screen that catches grit before it reaches the tubes. Header line: the larger pipe that feeds all of the row tubes.

Note: Check the filter every Monday. A clogged filter is the most common reason a row goes dry.

When to water

Water early in the morning. Less water dries away in the cool morning air. Push a finger into the soil beside a plant. If the soil is dry two knuckles down, that row needs a longer run.

  1. Copy the title of the guide exactly as it is printed.
  2. Which subheading would you read to learn where the tubes go? Copy the subheading.
  3. Copy the sentence under that subheading that tells how far apart the stakes go.
  4. What does the word "emitter" mean? Copy the words from the glossary that tell you.
  5. The caption explains what the dark area under the plant shows. Copy that sentence.
  6. Claim: a clogged filter can dry out a whole row. Copy the sentence from the note that supports this claim.
  7. Copy the sentence that tells the best time of day to water.
  8. Which subheading is that sentence printed under? Copy the subheading.
  9. Explain why the guide puts "emitter," "filter," and "header line" in a box of their own instead of inside a paragraph.
  10. A crew member says, "The guide says drip irrigation saves water because the tubes are thin." Explain why the guide does not support that reason.

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: "Watering the Rows: A Short Guide for the Hobbsfield Farm Crew"
    Accept the full title only. A student who copies the first subheading has named a part rather than the title.
  2. Answer: "Setting the lines"
    Accept this subheading only. "What drip irrigation is" explains the method rather than the placement.
  3. Answer: "Push the stakes in every ten feet."
    Accept the sentence word for word, including the period.
  4. Answer: "the small hole or fitting that lets the water drip out"
    The quoted words come from the glossary entry beginning "Emitter."
  5. Answer: "The dark area under the plant shows the wet soil."
    Accept only this sentence, which is the third sentence of the caption.
  6. Answer: "A clogged filter is the most common reason a row goes dry."
    Accept also the pair of note sentences together, since the first sends the crew to check the filter and the second gives the reason.
  7. Answer: "Water early in the morning."
    Accept also "Less water dries away in the cool morning air" only when the student explains that this sentence gives the reason rather than the time.
  8. Answer: "When to water"
    Accept this subheading only.
  9. Answer: The box gathers the words a reader might not know into one place, so a worker can look one up quickly without rereading the paragraphs. Look for the idea of finding a word fast, not simply that the words are important.
  10. Answer: The guide gives a different reason, which is that the water drips close to the roots so less of it is lost to the air. A strong answer names the sentence the crew member should have used instead of adding one the guide never printed.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a copy of the guide with each part labeled in the margin: title, subheading, caption, glossary, note. Work items 1 and 2 together, then let students use a sticky arrow to mark the part of the guide they will read before answering each remaining question.

Extension

Ask these students to write one more glossary entry the guide needs, choosing a word already used in the paragraphs but never defined, and to write the sentence in the guide that shows why a reader would want that word explained. Then have them write a second note for the margin that a new crew member would need in July.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "row," "stake," "clog," "grit," and "drip" with a labeled sketch of a tube running past three plants. Allow students to point to the part of the guide and read the sentence aloud before copying it, and accept phrases rather than full sentences in items 9 and 10.

Extensions

Have students rewrite the guide as a single paragraph with no subheadings, caption, glossary, or note, then trade with a partner and time how long it takes to find where the stakes go. The comparison gives students a concrete reason for the parts they were asked to use, and it makes a short discussion of audience possible without any new reading.