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The Four Seasons

1st grade nonfiction passage about weather and seasons: 74 words, five questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

1st grade nonfiction weather and seasons 74 words

The Four Seasons

A year has four seasons. They are spring, summer, fall, and winter.

In spring, the weather gets warmer. Rain falls, buds open, and new leaves grow.

Summer is the hottest season. The days are long, and the sun shines for many hours.

In fall, the weather gets cooler. In many places, leaves change color and drop to the ground.

Winter is the coldest season. In some places, snow falls.

After winter, spring comes again.

Questions

  1. How many seasons are in a year? in the text

  2. Which season is the hottest? in the text

  3. What happens to many leaves in the fall? in the text

  4. In which season does snow fall in some places? in the text

  5. What does the last sentence tell you about the seasons? think about it

Words to know

season
one of the four parts of the year: spring, summer, fall or winter
weather
what the air outside is like: sunny, rainy, hot or cold
bud
a small bump on a plant that opens into a leaf or flower
snow
soft white flakes of frozen water that fall from the sky

How to use it

  1. Press Read it big (or B) to put the text on the projector, or Full screen (F) to fill the whole screen.
  2. Ask the questions one at a time and use Show answer when the class has decided. A shows or hides every answer.
  3. Print student copy for the class, or Print with answers for yourself.

Ideas for class

  • Before reading, put season, weather, bud and snow on the board with their meanings from the Words to know section and have students predict what the text will be about.
  • Read it aloud once while students follow along, then have them reread it alone or with a partner. At a calm 100 words a minute it takes about 1 minute to read aloud.
  • Use the Read it big button (or B) to put the text on the projector, and Show answer on one question at a time so the class commits to an answer first.
  • Question 5 asks the reader to infer. Ask students to point to the words in the passage that led them to their answer.
  • Ask students to write one question the passage did not answer, then look for the answer in a book or on a classroom screen.
  • Print the student copy for independent work and keep the answer-key copy for yourself.

Related

Questions

What reading level is "The Four Seasons"?

It was written for 1st grade. It has 74 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 2.3. 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.

What do the questions ask?

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.

How long does it take to read?

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.

Can I print it?

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.

Is this passage from a published book?

No. It was written for Peabody Teach, so there is no book to buy and no login to read it.

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