Maarifa International Day One: Reading and Writing Enrichment 5-8!
Introduction to Reading Comprehension!
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Reading comprehension means to understand completely what you are reading and
being able to summarize what you have read.
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Directions: Read the short passage carefully and answer the questions afterwards. Try
your best to answer the questions from memory!
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Short Passage #1: Beautiful, but Endangered
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Giant panda bears are beautiful
creatures. They are very large, and look like
the common brown bears, but have different
fur. Instead of being brown, their fur is black
and white. They have white heads, with black
fur surrounding their eyes and ears. They also
have black hair on their shoulders and legs,
but the rest of their fur is white. Their fur is
very thick and keeps them warm during cold
weather and winter season.
Pandas live in of China, a country in
East Asia. There, they live in forests and eat a
plant called bamboo. They can eat bamboo for 12 hours every day.
There are a few interesting facts about giant pandas. One thing is that they have
six fingers, instead of five like humans do. Their sixth finger helps them eat bamboo.
They are also very skilled at climbing trees, and they can do this because they have
very strong legs. They can climb up high trees to look for food.
Giant pandas are wonderful and amazing animals, but they are very hard to find
because there are very few of them. The giant panda is endangered. This means that
they are in danger of dying and disappearing completely. This means we need to take
very good care of them. If we do not, they might disappear completely from the earth.
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Passage adapted from:
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Comprehension Questions:
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1. How are giant pandas different from the common brown bear?
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2. Where do pandas live? Where is this country located?
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Maarifa International Day One: Reading and Writing Enrichment 5-8!
3. What do pandas eat? How long do they eat for every day?
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4. How are panda paws different from human hands?
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5. What does the word endangered mean?
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6. Pandas are endangered because humans have cut down forests for wood, which
was the pandas’ home. Many hunters have killed pandas for their fur or meat. What do
you think about this? What are some ways we can stop pandas from becoming
endangered?
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Maarifa International Day One: Reading and Writing Enrichment 5-8!
Context Clues!
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Learning what new words mean using context clues is to read the surrounding words
and sentences to try to figure out what the unknown word means.
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Directions: Try to figure out the meaning of the highlighted word.
1. My classmate was always very modest about his abilities, even though he always
received the highest marks in the class.
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2. The boy’s sister was the opposite of him. She would leave her clothes and books all
over the house, while he was very tidy.
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3. You should not leave food out of the refrigerator for too long, or it will spoil.
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4. The girl crumpled her paper, and turned it into a wrinkled, crushed ball.
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5. The lion growled aggressively, he was angry and ready to attack.
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Maarifa International Day One: Reading and Writing Enrichment 5-8!
Introduction to Idioms
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Idioms are words or phrases that mean something different from its written meaning.
Here are some examples:
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1. Break a leg: a way to wish “good luck”
2. To live it up: to enjoy life
3. To shed crocodile tears: to cry about
something you don’t actually care about
4. Kick the bucket: to die
5. To spill the beans: to tell a secret
6. It’s raining cats and dogs: it’s raining heavily
7. To get into hot water: to get in trouble
8. To chicken out: to not do an activity because of fear
9. To be on top of the world: to be really happy —————>
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Directions: Practice writing sentences with idioms. Use idioms from the list or any other
ones you can think of!
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1. __________________________________________________________________________
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2. __________________________________________________________________________
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Introduction to Figurative Language
Idioms are a type of figurative language. Figurative language contains “images”. This is
when the writer or reader describes something using unusual comparisons. There are
many types of figurative language:
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1. Simile: comparison using the words “like” or “as”. The diamond sparkled as brightly
as the sun.
2. Metaphor: comparison without using “like” or “as”, making a statement that is
untrue for effect. Stop eating so messily, you are such a pig!
3. Personification: giving a nonliving object human abilities. The leaves danced in the
trees when the wind blew.
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Directions: Identify the type of figurative language used in the sentence, then write
what the “real” meaning of the sentence is. The first problem is done for you.
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The beautiful girl had lips as red as a rose and a dress as blue as the sky.
Simile. The meaning of this sentence is that the beautiful girl had very red lips and a light blue dress.
Maarifa International Day One: Reading and Writing Enrichment 5-8!
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2.
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The boy’s heart broke when his dog died.
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3. The lizard had scales as rough as sandpaper.
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4. The sun touched the girl’s face as she opened her window.
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5. The wind screamed in the family’s face during the windstorm.
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