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The Clever Octopus

7th grade nonfiction passage about animals: 275 words, five questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

7th grade nonfiction animals 275 words

The Clever Octopus

An octopus has no bones, no shell, and no backbone, yet it is one of the most intelligent animals in the ocean. Scientists have watched octopuses unscrew jar lids, find their way through mazes, and recognize individual people.

The octopus has a body plan unlike our own. It has three hearts: two pump blood through the gills, and a third sends blood to the rest of the body. Its blood is blue, because it uses a copper-based molecule to carry oxygen instead of the iron-based one in our blood. Most remarkable of all is its nervous system. About two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are not in its head but in its eight arms, so each arm can taste, touch, and make simple decisions on its own.

Because it has no skeleton, an octopus can squeeze through any opening larger than its hard, parrot-like beak. A full-grown octopus can slip through a hole not much bigger than a coin. Aquariums often have to fasten their tank lids carefully after discovering their octopuses wandering at night.

An octopus also defends itself with disguise. Special cells in its skin can change color in a fraction of a second, and other cells can raise bumps and ridges to match rocks or coral. If disguise fails, an octopus may squirt a cloud of dark ink to confuse an attacker and then jet away.

Despite these talents, most octopuses live only one to a few years. They do not have long childhoods in which parents teach them, so scientists wonder how such complicated thinking can develop in an animal that learns almost entirely on its own.

Questions

  1. How many hearts does an octopus have, and what does each do? in the text

  2. Why is an octopus's blood blue? in the text

  3. How can an octopus squeeze through a very small hole? in the text

  4. What is unusual about where an octopus keeps its neurons, and what does that allow? think about it

  5. What puzzle do scientists have about the octopus in the final paragraph? think about it

Words to know

intelligent
good at learning, solving problems, and understanding
neuron
a cell that carries messages in the nervous system
skeleton
the bones that support the body
disguise
a way to change how you look so you are not recognized
remarkable
worth noticing because it is unusual or impressive

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 intelligent, neuron, skeleton, disguise and remarkable 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 3 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 Clever Octopus"?

It was written for 7th grade. It has 275 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 8.7. 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 3 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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