Stop and think
Strategies for a harder text · Alberta Grade 4 · maddyhelps.com
- Name
- Date
Do the Before question first, then read the passage, stopping at each mark. The strategies are what a good reader does anyway; writing them down once makes them visible.
Before: the title is “The Engineer of the Pond”. What do you think it is about?
A beaver cannot see well, but it can hear running water from far away, and the sound of it seems to tell the beaver to build. It cuts young trees with front teeth that never stop growing, and it drags the branches to the stream. ① Stick by stick, packed with mud, the dam rises and the water behind it spreads into a pond.
The pond is the beaver’s moat: its lodge has underwater doors, so wolves and coyotes cannot follow it inside. But the pond is useful to others too. ② Ducks nest at its edges, frogs lay eggs in the still water, moose wade in to feed, and the wetland soaks up water that might otherwise flood the land downstream.
After: the whole passage in one sentence, in my own words