Skip to the content
Peabody TeachFor teachers and grown-ups

Hello, Mr. Watson

5th grade nonfiction passage about inventions and history: 224 words, five questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

5th grade nonfiction inventions and history 224 words

Hello, Mr. Watson

In the 1870s, the fastest way to send a message a long way was the telegraph. A telegraph sent short clicks over a wire. A trained operator turned the clicks into words. It was fast, but it could not carry a human voice.

Alexander Graham Bell, a teacher of deaf students, wanted to change that. He was fascinated by sound. He spent years studying how voices make the air vibrate. With his assistant, Thomas Watson, he worked in a Boston workshop. They tried to build a machine that could turn the vibrations of a voice into an electric signal.

On March 10, 1876, the two men were working in separate rooms. Bell spilled something on his clothes and called out, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." In the next room, Watson heard the words come through the wire. It was the first sentence ever spoken over a telephone.

Within a few years, telephones were spreading to homes and businesses in many cities. People could speak to someone far away as easily as to someone across the room. Today a phone fits in a pocket and can carry video as well as voices. But the main idea is the one Bell and Watson proved that day in Boston. A voice can be changed into a signal, sent along, and changed back into a voice.

Questions

  1. How did a telegraph send messages? in the text

  2. What did Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson want to build? in the text

  3. What were the first words spoken over a telephone? in the text

  4. Why was the telephone a big step beyond the telegraph? think about it

  5. What does the last sentence mean by the main idea being the same today? think about it

Words to know

telegraph
an old machine that sent messages as clicks over a wire
vibrate
to shake back and forth very fast
signal
a message sent by electricity, light, or sound
fascinated
very interested in something
operator
a person who works a machine

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 telegraph, vibrate, signal, fascinated and operator 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 "Hello, Mr. Watson"?

It was written for 5th grade. It has 224 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 5.5. 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.

Nothing you do here is sent to us. No sign-in, no ads.