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The First Airplane Flight

3rd grade nonfiction passage about inventions and history: 172 words, five questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

3rd grade nonfiction inventions and history 172 words

The First Airplane Flight

For a very long time, people watched birds and wished they could fly. Two brothers named Wilbur and Orville Wright decided to try. They ran a bicycle shop in Ohio. They built their flying machines in their spare time.

The brothers studied how birds twist their wings to turn. They built a small wind tunnel to test wing shapes. They also built a light engine, because no engine they could buy was small enough.

In December of 1903, the brothers took their airplane, the Flyer, to a windy beach near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. On the morning of December 17, Orville lay on the lower wing. The Flyer rose off the ground. The flight lasted only twelve seconds and went about 120 feet. It was the first time a machine with a person aboard had flown by its own power.

The brothers made three more flights that day. The longest lasted almost a minute. Today, planes carry millions of people through the sky every day. It all began with two brothers and a bicycle shop.

Questions

  1. What kind of shop did the Wright brothers run? in the text

  2. Why did they build their own engine? in the text

  3. Where and when did the first flight happen? in the text

  4. How did studying birds help the brothers? think about it

  5. Why was a flight of only twelve seconds still a big moment in history? think about it

Words to know

wind tunnel
a box that blows air over a model so builders can test its shape
engine
a machine that makes things move
twist
to turn one end of something while the other end stays still
airplane
a machine with wings that flies through the air
spare time
free time when you are not working

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 wind tunnel, engine, twist, airplane and spare time 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 2 minutes 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 4 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 First Airplane Flight"?

It was written for 3rd grade. It has 172 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 4.7. 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.

What do the questions ask?

There are five. 3 ask for something the text says directly and 2 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 2 minutes 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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