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Worksheet Grade 6 English Language Arts

Dellwood Water Plant Operator: A Grade 6 Careers Reading Worksheet

A grade 6 ELA worksheet on a short profile of a water treatment operator, with evidence-citing questions and vocabulary about the career path.

Objectives

  1. Students will cite details from a career profile to answer questions.
  2. Students will use the word license in a sentence about becoming an operator.

Vocabulary

Key words: operator, license, treatment, logbook, career

Teacher overview

This worksheet uses a short, plain profile of a water treatment operator to build close-reading skills and to introduce one water-sector career honestly. The questions ask students to cite stated details about the operator's daily work, training, pay, and job outlook, and one item asks them to use the word "license" in their own sentence. The profile presents the operator path and college paths as equally real choices, in keeping with how the career pages treat the full range of water work.

Dellwood Water Plant Operator: A Grade 6 Careers Reading Worksheet — Grade 6 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the profile. Then answer the questions in complete sentences.

Ms. Tran works at the fictional Dellwood Water Plant. She is a water treatment operator. Operators keep drinking water safe for a whole town. Ms. Tran checks gauges and runs water tests all day. She adds the right amount of treatment to the water. She writes her readings in a logbook. Some nights, an alarm calls her back to the plant.

To become an operator, Ms. Tran finished high school. Then she trained on the job. She passed a state exam to earn her license. Operators can earn higher license classes as they gain years of experience. Water and wastewater operators earned a middle pay of about $60,020 a year. About 10,000 operator jobs open each year from 2025 to 2035. They open when workers retire or move to other jobs.

Some water jobs need a college degree instead. Engineers who design pipes and plants often study for four years or more. Ms. Tran says every path into water work matters, and a town needs people on all of them.

  1. What is Ms. Tran's job at the Dellwood Water Plant?
  2. Name two things Ms. Tran does during her workday.
  3. What steps did Ms. Tran take to become an operator? List them in order.
  4. According to the profile, what is the middle yearly pay for operators?
  5. About how many operator jobs open each year from 2025 to 2035?
  6. Why do those jobs open? Use the profile.
  7. The profile says some water jobs need a college degree. What is one example it gives?
  8. Ms. Tran says "every path into water work matters." Explain what you think she means.
  9. Use the word "license" in a sentence about becoming a water operator.
  10. Would this job interest you? Give one reason based on a detail in the profile.

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: She is a water treatment operator, whose job is to keep a town's drinking water safe.
  2. Answer: Any two of: checks gauges, runs water tests, adds treatment to the water, writes readings in a logbook, or returns to the plant when an alarm sounds.
  3. Answer: She finished high school, then trained on the job, then passed a state exam to earn her license, in that order.
  4. Answer: About $60,020 a year, the middle pay the profile gives for operators.
  5. Answer: About 10,000 operator jobs open each year from 2025 to 2035, according to the profile.
  6. Answer: The jobs open when workers retire or move to other jobs, as the profile states.
  7. Answer: The profile gives engineers who design pipes and plants as its example; they often study for four years or more.
  8. Answer: Answers will vary but should explain that both the operator path and the college path are valuable, and a town needs workers on every path.
  9. Answer: Answers will vary. A correct sentence uses "license" to mean the state permit earned by exam, such as "An operator must pass a state exam to earn a license."
  10. Answer: Answers will vary. Look for a clear yes or no supported by one detail from the profile, such as the daily testing, the pay, or the job openings.

Differentiation

Support

Break the profile into its three topic sections (daily work, how to become an operator, and other water paths) with a subheading over each, and have students answer items 1 and 2 from the first section before reading the rest.

Extension

Ask students to write two interview questions they would ask Ms. Tran, and predict how she might answer one of them using a detail from the profile.

ELL supports

Provide a picture glossary for "operator," "gauge," "logbook," and "license," and allow students to answer items 1 through 6 by underlining the sentence in the profile that gives each answer.