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The Clock That Only Ticked on Tuesdays

5th grade fiction passage about a spare hour on Tuesdays: 232 words, six questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

5th grade fiction a spare hour on Tuesdays 232 words

The Clock That Only Ticked on Tuesdays

In Mr. Quill's cluttered clock shop, hundreds of clocks ticked and chimed from morning until night. Only one remained silent. It sat on a high shelf, buried under dust, and no customer had ever seen its hands move.

Wren worked in the shop after school. One Tuesday afternoon, she heard a tiny sound behind her. Tick. She turned and saw the old clock's hands creeping forward. The big clock on the wall said 4:59, while the silent clock said 5:00, and then, slowly, it said 5:01 and kept on going.

A strange hour began. The street outside went completely still, and a bird hung in the air like a toy dangling from a string. Mr. Quill stood frozen with a screwdriver in his hand. Only Wren could move.

She grasped the situation at once. This was a spare hour, tucked invisibly between 4:59 and 5:00, and it belonged to anyone who happened to notice it.

Across the street, Mrs. Abel was struggling to finish a quilt for the town fair, but the shop closed at five and her thread had run out. Wren hurried over with a spool borrowed from the shop. She sat and stitched beside the frozen quilt until the final square was complete.

At exactly 5:00, the clock fell silent. The bird flew on, and Mr. Quill finished his sentence. Nobody knew what had happened, except that the quilt was ready, and Wren was smiling.

Questions

  1. What was different about the clock on the high shelf? in the text

  2. What happened to the street outside during the spare hour? in the text

  3. Who was able to move during the spare hour? in the text

  4. Why did Wren hurry across the street? in the text

  5. Why did nobody else realize the spare hour had happened? think about it

  6. How did Wren make good use of the spare hour? think about it

Words to know

ticked
made the short, sharp sound a clock makes
creeping
moving very slowly and quietly
frozen
not able to move at all
spare
extra, and not needed for something else
stitched
sewed with a needle and thread
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One passage, three levels

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.

● Easier · 215 words · Flesch-Kincaid grade 2.5

In Mr. Quill's clock shop, hundreds of clocks ticked all day long. Only one was silent. It sat on a high shelf, covered in dust, and nobody had ever seen its hands move.

Wren worked in the shop after school. One Tuesday, she heard a tiny sound behind her. Tick. She turned and saw the old clock's hands creeping forward. The big clock on the wall said 4:59. The silent clock said 5:00, and then, slowly, it said 5:01 and kept on going.

A strange hour began. The street outside went still. A bird hung in the air like a toy on a string. Mr. Quill stood frozen with a screwdriver in his hand. Only Wren could move.

She understood at once. This was a spare hour, tucked between 4:59 and 5:00, and it belonged to anyone who noticed it.

Across the street, Mrs. Abel was trying to finish a quilt for the town fair, but the shop closed at five and her thread had run out. Wren hurried over with a spool from the shop. She sat and stitched beside the frozen quilt until the last square was done.

At 5:00, the clock fell silent. The bird flew on, and Mr. Quill finished his sentence. Nobody knew what had happened, except that the quilt was ready, and Wren was smiling.

▲ This passage · 232 words · Flesch-Kincaid grade 4.2

In Mr. Quill's cluttered clock shop, hundreds of clocks ticked and chimed from morning until night. Only one remained silent. It sat on a high shelf, buried under dust, and no customer had ever seen its hands move.

Wren worked in the shop after school. One Tuesday afternoon, she heard a tiny sound behind her. Tick. She turned and saw the old clock's hands creeping forward. The big clock on the wall said 4:59, while the silent clock said 5:00, and then, slowly, it said 5:01 and kept on going.

A strange hour began. The street outside went completely still, and a bird hung in the air like a toy dangling from a string. Mr. Quill stood frozen with a screwdriver in his hand. Only Wren could move.

She grasped the situation at once. This was a spare hour, tucked invisibly between 4:59 and 5:00, and it belonged to anyone who happened to notice it.

Across the street, Mrs. Abel was struggling to finish a quilt for the town fair, but the shop closed at five and her thread had run out. Wren hurried over with a spool borrowed from the shop. She sat and stitched beside the frozen quilt until the final square was complete.

At exactly 5:00, the clock fell silent. The bird flew on, and Mr. Quill finished his sentence. Nobody knew what had happened, except that the quilt was ready, and Wren was smiling.

■ Harder · 238 words · Flesch-Kincaid grade 4.9

In Mr. Quill's cluttered clock shop, hundreds of clocks ticked and chimed from morning until night. Only one remained completely silent. It sat on a high shelf beneath a thick blanket of dust, and no customer had ever witnessed its hands move.

Wren worked in the shop after school. One Tuesday afternoon, she heard a tiny sound behind her. Tick. She turned around and saw the old clock's hands creeping forward. The big clock on the wall read 4:59, while the silent clock read 5:00, and then, slowly, it read 5:01 and kept on going.

A strange hour began. The street outside went perfectly still, and a bird hung in midair like a toy dangling from a string. Mr. Quill stood frozen with a screwdriver in his hand. Only Wren could move.

She grasped the situation at once. This was a spare hour, tucked invisibly between 4:59 and 5:00, and it belonged to anyone who happened to notice it.

Across the street, Mrs. Abel was struggling to finish a quilt for the town fair, but the shop closed at five and her thread had run out. Wren hurried over with a spool borrowed from the shop, sat beside the motionless quilt, and stitched steadily until the final square was complete.

At exactly 5:00, the clock fell silent once more. The bird flew on, and Mr. Quill finished his sentence. Nobody knew what had occurred, except that the quilt was ready, and Wren was smiling.

Download as one PDF

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 ticked, creeping, frozen, spare and stitched on the board with their meanings from the Words to know section and have students predict what the story 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 5 asks the reader to infer. Ask students to point to the words in the passage that led them to their answer.
  • Ask students to retell the story in three sentences: how it began, what the problem was, and how it ended.
  • Print the student copy for independent work and keep the answer-key copy for yourself.

Related

Questions

What reading level is "The Clock That Only Ticked on Tuesdays"?

It was written for 5th grade. It has 232 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 4.2. 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. 4 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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