Jane Goodall Free Reading Passage

Description

Jane Goodall is an amazing scientist. She was the first scientist to report chimpanzees using tools in the wild. She is one of the featured scientists in the new second-grade science TEKS. All of the STARR reading passage topics will be pulled from previous years’ science and social studies topics, so Jane Goodall may show up on a STARR test in the future.

Reading and Writing to Understand

Reading and writing are two ways we work to understand information. To ensure that your students understand and remember what they learn about Jane Goodall, you will have them read and write about her. There are many writing structures you can use in your classroom. I have created an “adding details” system to help students write more interesting sentences.

Here is how it works:

1. There are three to four videos on the subject. Students do not need to watch all of the videos. I like to show my favorite video to the entire class and then share the presentation with students so that they can choose which other videos they want to watch. Watching the videos aims to build up the students’ background knowledge on a subject. They get familiar with the relevant vocabulary and start making connections. This helps them understand what they read.
2. Students read the paragraph on the subject. They may have to read it a couple of times to understand it.
3. Students complete the details chart (who, what, where, when, why, and how) to organize their learning from the reading passage. There will be multiple ways to complete the chart correctly.
4. Students use the charts to write three questions about the subject (and the answers) on the back of the reading passage. Later, you can turn one of the questions into a writing prompt for the students.

This is just the printable version of the reading passage. You can access the presentation with the YouTube video links here.