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How Plants Make Food

5th grade nonfiction passage about plants and energy: 183 words, six questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

5th grade nonfiction plants and energy 183 words

How Plants Make Food

Unlike animals, plants make their own food. The process is called photosynthesis, and it happens mostly in the leaves.

A plant needs three things for photosynthesis: sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. Roots soak up water from the soil, and the water travels up the stem to the leaves. Carbon dioxide is a gas in the air. It enters the leaf through tiny holes that are far too small to see without a microscope.

Inside the leaf, cells hold a green substance called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll captures energy from sunlight. The plant uses that energy to turn water and carbon dioxide into sugar. The sugar is the plant's food. It gives the plant energy to grow, and some of it is stored in roots, stems, fruits, and seeds.

Photosynthesis makes something else, too. As the plant makes sugar, it lets oxygen out into the air through the same tiny holes. Animals, including people, need oxygen to breathe.

So plants feed themselves, and they help every animal on Earth. They give us the oxygen we breathe, and they are the starting point of most food chains.

Questions

  1. What is photosynthesis? in the text

  2. What three things does a plant need for photosynthesis? in the text

  3. How does water get to the leaves? in the text

  4. What does chlorophyll do? in the text

  5. What two things does photosynthesis make? in the text

  6. Why do animals depend on plants? think about it

Words to know

photosynthesis
the way plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to make food
carbon dioxide
a gas in the air that plants take in
chlorophyll
the green substance in leaves that captures energy from sunlight
oxygen
a gas in the air that people and animals need to breathe
energy
the power to do work or make things change

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 photosynthesis, carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, oxygen and energy 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 6 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 "How Plants Make Food"?

It was written for 5th grade. It has 183 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 5.9. 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 six. 5 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 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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