1st grade nonfiction passage about onions and tears: 82 words, five questions, an answer key and vocabulary.
An onion looks plain. It has a papery skin and layers inside. But it has a secret.
When a grown-up cuts an onion, tiny bits of gas float out. The gas drifts up to your eyes. Ouch! Your eyes sting.
Your eyes want to fix this. They make tears to wash the gas away. So you cry, but you are not sad.
Soon the onion is in the pot. Heat makes it soft and sweet. Now it tastes great in soup.
What does an onion have inside? in the text
What floats out when a grown-up cuts an onion? in the text
What do your eyes make to wash the gas away? in the text
What does heat do to the onion in the pot? in the text
Why do you cry when someone cuts an onion? 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.
An onion has a papery skin. It has layers inside. It has a secret.
A grown-up cuts the onion. Tiny bits of gas float out. They reach your eyes. Ouch! Your eyes sting.
Your eyes make tears. The tears wash the gas away. You cry, but you are not sad.
Then the onion goes in the pot. Heat makes it soft and sweet.
An onion looks plain. It has a papery skin and layers inside. But it has a secret.
When a grown-up cuts an onion, tiny bits of gas float out. The gas drifts up to your eyes. Ouch! Your eyes sting.
Your eyes want to fix this. They make tears to wash the gas away. So you cry, but you are not sad.
Soon the onion is in the pot. Heat makes it soft and sweet. Now it tastes great in soup.
An onion looks very plain from the outside. It has a thin, papery skin, and underneath there are many layers. But an onion is hiding a secret.
When a grown-up slices into an onion, tiny bits of gas float out into the air. The gas drifts up toward your face and makes your eyes sting.
Your eyes try to protect themselves, so they make tears to wash the gas away. That is why you cry, even though you are not sad at all.
Later, the onion goes into a hot pot. The heat makes it soft and sweet, and it adds a wonderful taste to soup.
It was written for 1st grade. It has 82 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 0.4. 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.
No. It was written for Peabody Teach, so there is no book to buy and no login to read it.
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