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Why Leaves Change Color

4th grade nonfiction passage about plants: 174 words, five questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

4th grade nonfiction plants 174 words

Why Leaves Change Color

Every autumn, the green leaves on many trees turn red, orange, and gold. The colors seem to appear out of nowhere, but the story starts in the spring and summer.

During the warm months, leaves are full of a green substance called chlorophyll. A leaf uses chlorophyll to catch sunlight. With that light, the leaf turns water and air into sugar, which feeds the tree. Chlorophyll is so plentiful in summer that its green color hides everything else.

As autumn comes, the days grow shorter and the nights grow cooler. The tree gets ready for winter by slowing down its food making. The chlorophyll breaks apart, and the green fades away.

Now the other colors can be seen. Yellow and orange were in the leaf all along, hidden underneath the green. Red is different. Many trees make new red coloring in the fall, and bright sunny days with cool nights give the best show.

Finally, the leaves dry up and fall. The tree rests through the winter and grows new leaves in the spring.

Questions

  1. What is chlorophyll, and what does it do? in the text

  2. Why do leaves look green all summer? in the text

  3. Which colors were hiding in the leaf all along? in the text

  4. What signals the tree to get ready for winter? think about it

  5. How is the red color different from yellow and orange? think about it

Words to know

chlorophyll
the green substance in plants that catches sunlight
substance
a kind of matter, or stuff, that something is made of
plentiful
there is a lot of it
autumn
the season between summer and winter; also called fall
fade
to slowly lose color

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 chlorophyll, substance, plentiful, autumn and fade 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 "Why Leaves Change Color"?

It was written for 4th grade. It has 174 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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