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Reading passage Grade 4 Health & Consumer Science

Why the Mendoza Family's Tap Water Smells Like a Pool

A grade 4 informational narrative in which a water operator explains the chlorine smell at a family's kitchen tap, with seven comprehension questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will locate stated details about chlorine and the residual in the passage.
  2. Students will draw inferences about temperature, taste, and safety using details from the text.
  3. Students will use the word residual correctly in a sentence of their own.

Vocabulary

Key words: chlorine, residual, operator, utility

Teacher overview

The chlorine smell in tap water is a common question at home, and answering it means explaining how a water system protects people between the treatment plant and the kitchen. This passage follows the fictional Mendoza family through one phone call to their town's water office. Assign it when you want a text that rewards careful rereading: the answer to the safety question in item 6 depends on a sentence the narrator does not flag, and students who skim will reverse it.

Why the Mendoza Family's Tap Water Smells Like a Pool — Grade 4 Health & Consumer Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

The Pool Smell in the Kitchen

One hot morning in July, Marisol Mendoza filled a glass at the kitchen sink. She lifted it toward her mouth and stopped. The water smelled like the town pool.

Marisol carried the glass to her father. He smelled it too. Then he called the water office in the town of Halloran, where the family lives.

An operator named Ms. Pike answered the phone. She said the smell was chlorine. Chlorine is a cleaner that kills germs in water. The Halloran plant adds a small amount before the water leaves the building.

Ms. Pike explained why the chlorine does not stop working at the plant. Water travels a long way through pipes under the streets. Germs can get into a pipe if it cracks, or if a crew opens it for a repair. So the plant leaves a little chlorine in the water for the whole trip. Workers call that leftover amount the residual. Operators test the residual at spots around town on a regular schedule.

Mr. Mendoza asked why the smell was worse in July than it had been in March. Ms. Pike said warm water lets the smell escape into the air faster than cold water does. In summer, the water in the pipes is warmer. The smell reaches your nose sooner when the glass is near your face.

Then Ms. Pike shared a tip she gives to callers every summer. Chlorine leaves water slowly when the water sits. Fill a pitcher, leave the lid off, and keep it in the refrigerator for a few hours. The water will be cold, and it will smell much less like a pool.

Marisol had been waiting to ask the question that worried her. Does the pool smell mean the water is not safe? Ms. Pike said no, and that the smell usually means the opposite. It means the cleaner is still doing its work out in the pipe. Water that has lost all its chlorine at the far end of a system is the kind that makes an operator pay attention.

That night the Mendozas filled a pitcher, left the lid off, and set it on the top shelf of the refrigerator. In the morning Marisol poured a glass. She smelled it first, the way she had the day before. The pool smell was almost gone.

Marisol drank the whole glass. Then she filled it again and took it out to the porch.

Questions

  1. What did Marisol notice when she filled her glass at the kitchen sink?
  2. What does the Halloran plant add to the water, and what does it do?
  3. What word do water workers use for the leftover chlorine in the pipes?
  4. Mr. Mendoza asked why the smell was worse in July than in March. Use details from the passage to answer his question.
  5. Explain why the water from the pitcher smelled different from the water straight from the tap. Use two details from the passage.
  6. Would Ms. Pike say that a chlorine smell means the water is unsafe? Use a detail from the passage to support your answer.
  7. The passage says a residual is the leftover amount. Write one sentence of your own that uses the word residual correctly.

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 smelled like the town pool.
    The passage states that she lifted the glass toward her mouth, stopped, and noticed the pool smell.
  2. Answer: Chlorine, which is a cleaner that kills germs in water.
    Ms. Pike explains that the plant adds a small amount of chlorine before the water leaves the building.
  3. Answer: The residual.
    The passage says workers call the leftover amount the residual, and that operators test it around town on a regular schedule.
  4. Answer: Summer water in the pipes is warmer, and warm water lets the smell escape into the air faster.
    Students should point to Ms. Pike's explanation about warm and cold water rather than to the July date alone.
  5. Answer: The pitcher water sat for hours in the refrigerator, so chlorine had time to leave the water, and the water was also cold.
    The two supporting details are that chlorine leaves water slowly when the water sits, and that cold water releases the smell more slowly than warm water.
  6. Answer: No, she would say the smell usually means the opposite.
    The passage states that the smell means the cleaner is still working in the pipe, and that water with no chlorine left at the far end of a system is what makes an operator pay attention.
  7. Answer: Any sentence using residual to mean a small leftover amount.
    Accept sentences such as "The operator measured the residual at the school before lunch." Do not accept sentences that use residual to mean the whole amount of chlorine added at the plant.

Differentiation

Support

Read the passage aloud once while students follow along, pausing after the paragraph about pipes to restate the idea of a residual in one sentence. Give these students a copy with the four vocabulary words highlighted, and let them answer items 1 through 3 by underlining the sentence in the text before they write.

Extension

Ask students to write the short note Marisol might leave on the refrigerator for a cousin who is visiting, explaining in four sentences what the pitcher is for and why the water in it smells different. Students should include the word residual and one detail about temperature.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "chlorine," "pipe," "residual," and "operator" with simple sketches: a treatment building, a pipe under a street, a glass with a small amount left in it, and a worker with a test kit. Allow items 4 through 6 to be answered orally to a partner first, and provide the frames "The smell is worse in summer because ___" and "The pitcher water smells different because ___."

Extensions

Have students find out who answers the phone for their own community's water system, using the contact information printed on a water bill or on the utility's yearly water quality report, with an adult's help. Students write two questions they would ask, then compare their questions as a class and discuss which ones a water operator could answer in a single phone call.