Reading 10

Can you imagine a world without books? It may seem like we have always had books, but that is not true. A long time ago, before there were books, people used to write things on pieces of stone. Even before people wrote on stones, people would draw pictures on the walls of caves. In a way, these were the very first books. People wrote things down so that other people could read them later. Many years later, someone invented better ways of writing things down using shapes, lines, and circles. Then, people invented paper. Some people think that learning how to make paper and putting papers together to make books changed the world forever. At first, books were very rare and only very rich people could own them. Books were so special that sometimes you could visit a village and not find one book in the whole village. A few hundred years ago, books became cheaper and more common because of a special machine that made books quickly. Then, it was not only rich people who owned them, People started reading and learning about all kinds of different things. Books were not only used for learning, People also used them to tell stories about far away lands and exciting adventures. Before books, people came together in groups to listen to stories for fun. But with books, a person could sit at home and have fun reading exciting stories alone. Many people thought when movies and radio were invented that nobody would read books anymore. But people still wanted to read books. Then when TV came along, people were sure that books were finished. But people still wanted to read books. Today we have computers. Some people say that computers will be the end of books for sure. But I don't think so.

Reading 9

Have you ever listened to a book on tape? I have. One month ago, I listened to my first book on tape. It was really great. I found that books on tape have a lot of advantages. For example, books on tape are great for people who are too busy to read. I love reading, but I do not have much free time during my day to read for fun. I spend a long time at school every day. Then, when I come home at night, I have to do my homework. I go to bed late and get up early. My only free time is early in the morning, but that is when I exercise, l am too busy to read! But books on tape let me enjoy fun stories. Books on tape make it possible for me to do two things at once. For example, I like to go running early in the morning before breakfast. I was very happy when I tried running and listening to my book on tape at the same time. I got lost in the story and forgot that I was running. I ran longer than I expected because I liked listening to the story so much. So, that is another good thing about books on tape. They let me enjoy stories while I do something else, and they help me exercise more! I can also listen to a book white I am riding the bus to school. I could never read a book on the bus because it made me feel sick. But listening to a book on tape on the bus does not make me sick. It is wonderful, l just look out the window as I ride and forget all about the people around me.

Reading 8

Books have been around for a long time. A long time ago, very few people could read. Reading was very special. Only very important towns people could read. Today, most people can read. Most have libraries. These are big buildings full of books. There were libraries long ago, too. However, back then not everyone could go there. Libraries today are different. Anyone can visit them and read books for free. They can also ask for books and take them home. We can read about anything at a library. But what will libraries be like in the future? Will they be very different from libraries today? Right now, people are making a new kind of library. This library is not in a building, but it is easy for everyone to visit. This is a library on your computer! This library will have all of the books in the world in every language. You can choose a book and see it on your computer. You can read the book for free-just like a real library. This is called the Open Library Project. Many people are working together on this. Many schools and companies are also helping. They want to make all books free for everybody. How will they do it? A worker who is helping with the Open Library Project takes a picture of a page from a book. The worker saves the picture on a computer. When all of the pages of a book are saved, the whole book is on the computer. Then someone uses the computer to put the book on the Internet, so anyone around the world can read the book. Anyone can read the book from a computer in his or her home! This is the beginning of the library of the future!

Reading 7

What do you do when you read a really good book? You tell people about it. You tell them they should read it. Maybe you know how hard it can be not to talk about a good book to a friend who has not read the book yet. You want to tell your friend what the book is about, but you do not want to ruin it by saying too much. If you Love to talk about good books, it is a good idea to join a book club. In a book club, everyone decides on a book to read. Then everyone reads it at the same time. When everyone has finished the book, you can get together and discuss it. This way, everyone has read the book, so you do not have to worry about saying too much. Another great thing about a book club is that you can hear different people's points of view. Or, you might realize something about the story that you had not thought about. Joining a book club is also a great way to meet new people. However, when you are looking for a book club to join, it is important to choose the right one. Make sure that the people in the group like the same kind of books that you do. And make sure that the people in your group read at the same speed as you do. If you read fast, you do not want to wait weeks and weeks for your friends to finish. And if you read slowly, you do not want to miss the meeting because you have not finished the book. Also, you do not want to go to a meeting if you have not finished the book because it could ruin the ending for you when people discuss it.

Reading 5

You may have noticed that cats and dogs learn differently. For example, you can train dogs to roll over for a piece of food. It is a lot harder to train cats to do tricks. But that does not mean that cats are not as smart as dogs. It also does not mean that dogs learn faster than cats. Dogs and cats simply learn differently. Their learning styles influence the types of things that you can teach these animals to do. For example, it takes no time for cats to learn to use a special box for their bathroom. However, dogs take more time to learn where and when they should go to the bathroom. Why are these animals different? You have to think about how these animals act in the wild. If something is natural for an animal to do, it is easier for the animal to learn. But why can people teach dogs to sit but not cats? Cats and dogs both sit in the wild, after all. This actually has to do with how dogs live in groups in the wild, but cats live alone. In a group of wild dogs, there is one male that is the boss. All of the other dogs work to please this "boss." When a dog comes into a person's house to live, the person in the house becomes the boss. Your dog naturally wants to please you so that you will let it live with you. Cats are different. Cats do not live in groups with a boss. When a cat comes to live at your house, it sees you as an equal. Therefore, it will not try so hard to please you. So, cats and dogs have different reasons to learn the things they do.

Reading 4

There are two different kinds of animals. First, there are animals without backbones. These were the first animals. These are animals like starfish, bugs, and crabs. Other animals have backbones. There are many different animals with backbones. Fish were the first animals with backbones. Fish live in the water. They cannot take in air like humans. They have to take in water to breathe. There are many different kinds of fish. Some fish live in the sea, and some live in lakes and rivers. Some fish, like sharks, are very large, but other fish are tiny. A very unusual kind of fish are eels. Eels look like snakes, but they are fish. For a long time, fish were the only animals. Then, some fish became able to get out of the water and move on land. These fish became "amphibians," which means "having two lives." One life is in the water, and the other life is on the land. A young amphibian lives in water. A fully grown amphibian lives on land and can take in air. The best known amphibian is the frog. At first, amphibians had their babies in water. Eventually, some amphibians became able to have their babies on land. The first animals to have their babies out of water were reptiles. Reptiles are animals like lizards, snakes, and crocodiles. Dinosaurs were reptiles, too. Dinosaurs were very large lizards that lived on the Earth millions of years ago. They have all disappeared around 65 million years ago. Some reptiles became very light and developed feathers. These became birds. Birds are light and can fly. Some birds swim or run instead of flying. The next animals to come along were mammals. Mammals have hair and produce milk for their young. Mammals are animals like dogs, cats, horses, and humans.

Reading 3

Penguins are very interesting birds. They cannot fly, but they are good at swimming. Penguins spend most of their time in the water. However, they are birds, so they cannot breathe underwater. They can hold their breath for a long time, but at some point, they have to come up for air. Sometimes penguins swim slowly on top of the water to get air. But when penguins are chasing fish, they can jump out of the water. As they swim fast, penguins will jump out of the water, take in a breath of air, and go back underwater. Penguins can also jump out of the water onto a fiat piece of ice if they are tired of swimming. Most penguins live in cold places. How do penguins deal with it? Well, for one thing, they have two layers of special feathers that keep them warm. They also produce a special oil that they rub over the feathers. This oil keeps water and wind out. So when penguins are swimming, the water does not get through the layer of feathers, and the penguins' bodies do not get wet. When they are out of the water, penguins are protected from the wind, too. Penguins also have a lot of fat under their skin. Along with their feathers, the fat helps to keep them warm. But if that does not work, they can always use body heat. Penguins are warm blooded, just like people. So, if they get cold, they can stand close together and share their body heat. Penguins live in cold places where all the fresh water is frozen. So, what do penguins drink? They drink salt water from the ocean. In a penguin's mouth, the salt is taken out of the water and goes out through holes in the penguin's bill.

Reading 2

The elephant is the biggest animal that lives on land. Have you ever seen an elephant? They are very big and grey. They also have very long noses, called trunks, which they use to put food into their mouths. Elephants cannot see very well. Their eyes are on the side of their heads, so they have to move their whole body to look at things. All elephants have very good hearing, but they do not all have big ears. The elephants in Africa have very big ears. They use their ears to help them cool down on hot days. Elephants in other countries do not have such big ears. Elephants live in both Africa and Asia. They can live for about 70 years. That is a long time. Most of an elephant's life is spent eating. Elephants spend 75% of their day eating. They eat a lot of plants and trees. They do not eat other animals. Elephants also need to drink a lot of water. They drink more than 250 liters of water a day. That is like drinking more than 700 small bottles of water a day. Elephants do not like to be on their own. They travel around in groups, usually with about 10 other elephants. When new elephants are born, the whole group helps to look after the new baby elephants. Elephants are very lucky because other animals do not attack them. Sometimes baby elephants are attacked by lions and crocodiles. However, there is a bigger problem for elephants than lions and crocodiles. The bigger problem is humans. Humans kill many elephants. Parts of the elephant are worth a lot of money, so people want to get these parts and sell them. People also kill elephants when elephants come too close to houses or towns.

Reading 6 Reading Books

Do you like to travel to interesting places? Do you like to learn about new ideas? Well, you can do all these things without leaving your home. How can you do this? By reading books! A good book is like a good friend. It can make you feel great, take you places you have never been, and help you discover things you do not know. Sometimes I like to read books so that I can enter a different world. When I read a story, my mind gets lost in the story. I think that I am part of it. I picture what the people in the book look like, what they are wearing, and what kind of houses they have. In a good book, I can travel in my mind to different countries or special worlds. The writer's words help me make pictures in my mind, like my own special movie. I can "see" what is happening on each page and discover things I did not know. Other times I like to read books to learn facts. Did you know that an animal can run faster than a car over short distances? Or that about three-and-a-half people are born in the world each second? These are the types of facts that I can learn from books. I can also learn about history by reading books. This is how I learned who was the first president of the United States and which is the oldest country in the world. I can also learn about famous people's lives by reading books about them. Whether you like stories or facts, there are books for you. Go to a library, visit a bookstore, or look on the Internet. It will not take long for you to get lost in the pages of an interesting book.

Groups of Animals

One way to learn about the millions of animals in the world is to put them in groups. By looking at animals in groups, we can see interesting points that are the same or are different about animals. In this way, we can say that some animals belong to certain groups. People belong to a group that includes dogs, bears, horses, and monkeys. Animals in this group all have hair. Babies come out of their mothers, not out of eggs. And babies in this group of animals drink milk from their mother. Birds are another group of animals. Not all birds can fly, but all birds lay eggs. Baby birds come out of eggs, and their mothers give them food and care for them. Some animals eat plants, some eat other animals, and some eat both. Many that eat plants eat only one kind of plant, or one part of a plant. In this way, different kinds of plant-eating animals can live together in the same place and have enough food. Animals come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Their bodies help them get food and keep them safe from other animals that want to eat them. Many birds have very good eyes. When they are flying, they can see fish in the water and small animals on the ground. Dogs have great noses and ears. They can smell and hear things that are far away. Bears are very strong. They can kill fish and other animals with their arms. Small animals have ways to protect themselves from bigger ones. Their bodies, for example, might be the same color as the ground around them. This makes them hard to see. Also, some animals can make their bodies look bigger and stronger than they really are. Then other animals do not want to eat them.

One way to learn about the millions of animals in the world is to put them in groups. By looking at animals in groups, we can see interesting points that are the same or are different about animals. In this way, we can say that some animals belong to certain groups. People belong to a group that includes dogs, bears, horses and monkeys. Animals in this group all have hair. Babies come out of their mothers, not out of eggs. And babies in this group of animals drink milk from their mothers. Birds are another group of animals. Not all birds can fly, but all birds lay eggs. Baby birds come out of eggs, and their mothers give them food and care for them. Some animals eat plants, some eat other animals and some eat both. Many that eat plants eat only one kind of plant, or one part of the plant. In this way, different kinds of plant-eating animals can live together in the same place and have enough food. Animals come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Their bodies help them get food and keep them sage from other animals that want to eat them. Many birds have very good eyes. When they are flying, they can see fish in the water and small animals on the ground. Dogs have great noses and ears. They can smell and hear things that are far away. Bears are very strong. They can kill fish and other animals with their arms. Small animals have ways to protect themselves from bigger ones. Their bodies, for example, might be the same color as the ground around them. This makes them hard to see. Also, some animals can make their bodies look bigger and stronger than they really are. Then other animals do not want to eat them.