1st grade nonfiction passage about papyrus in ancient Egypt: 85 words, five questions, an answer key and vocabulary.
Long ago, in Egypt, people made paper from a plant. The plant was called papyrus. It grew tall by the river.
A worker cut the stems. Then he cut the stems into thin strips. He laid the strips in a row. He laid more strips on top, the other way. Then he pressed them flat.
The strips dried into a sheet. People wrote on it with ink. They rolled the sheets up like a scroll. Do you like to write on paper? So did they!
What plant did people use to make paper? in the text
Where did papyrus grow? in the text
What did the worker cut the stems into? in the text
What did people do with the dry sheets? in the text
Why did the worker press the strips flat? think about it
The same topic and facts written three ways, so a mixed class can read and talk about one text. Each group’s sheet shows only a shape; the key says which is which.
Long ago, people in Egypt made paper. They made it from a plant. The plant was papyrus. It grew by the river.
A worker cut the stems. He cut them into thin strips. He laid the strips in a row. He laid more strips on top. Then he pressed them flat.
The strips dried into a sheet. People wrote on it with ink. They rolled it up like a scroll.
Long ago, in Egypt, people made paper from a plant. The plant was called papyrus. It grew tall by the river.
A worker cut the stems. Then he cut the stems into thin strips. He laid the strips in a row. He laid more strips on top, the other way. Then he pressed them flat.
The strips dried into a sheet. People wrote on it with ink. They rolled the sheets up like a scroll. Do you like to write on paper? So did they!
Thousands of years ago, people in Egypt made paper from a tall plant called papyrus. The plant grew in thick patches along the river.
A worker cut the stems of the plant and sliced them into thin strips. He laid the strips side by side in a row, and then he laid more strips across the top in the other direction. After that, he pressed everything flat.
Once the strips had dried, they became a single sheet. People wrote on the sheet with ink, and they often rolled the sheets up into a long scroll. Do you enjoy writing on paper? People in Egypt did too.
It was written for 1st grade. It has 85 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 0.7. That is a formula's estimate from sentence length and syllables, and it is not a Lexile or a guided reading level, so check it against your students.
There are five. 4 ask for something the text says directly and 1 ask the reader to work something out from clues. Each has an answer in the key, and the answers are written as a teacher would accept them, not as the only possible wording.
About 1 minute read aloud at 100 words a minute. For a one-minute fluency check, paste it into the fluency timer and use the word count.
Yes. Print student copy gives the passage, the questions with lines to write on, and the word meanings. Print with answers gives the same page with the answers filled in. Both are made in your browser.
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