TELPAS reading practice questions for 4th and 5th grade

Every November, the pecan tree in Grandma Rosa’s backyard dropped its nuts all over the grass. And every November, Grandma Rosa handed Mateo a bucket.

“Fill it to the top,” she said, “and we will have enough for pies at Thanksgiving.”

Mateo groaned. Picking up pecans was tedious work. He had to bend down again and again, and each nut made only a tiny click when it landed in the bucket. After ten minutes, the bottom of the bucket was barely covered.

Then Grandma Rosa came out of the shed with an old wire tool on a long handle. She rolled it across the grass, and the pecans popped up inside the wire basket. “Your grandfather made this,” she said. “He hated bending down too.”

Mateo laughed and took the handle. He rolled it back and forth under the tree, and soon the bucket was half full. Grandma Rosa sat on the porch step and told him about the year Grandpa had tried to sell pecans at the farmers market and had eaten more than he sold.

By the time the sun went down, the bucket was full. Mateo’s back did not hurt at all, and he knew three new stories about a grandfather he had never met.

“Same time next year?” Grandma Rosa asked.

“Same time next year,” Mateo said, and he meant it.

The Texas horned lizard is a small, flat lizard with sharp horns on its head and short spines along its back and sides. Many people call it a “horny toad,” but it is not a toad at all. It is a reptile, and it is the official state reptile of Texas.

Horned lizards live in dry, open places with sandy or rocky ground. Their main food is harvester ants. One horned lizard can eat dozens of ants in a single day.

This lizard has some surprising ways to stay safe. Its brown and gray colors help it blend in with the ground, so a hungry hawk may fly right past it. If an enemy comes close, the lizard can puff up its body so it looks bigger and is harder to swallow. When it is in real danger, it can even squirt a thin stream of blood from the corners of its eyes. The blood tastes bad to coyotes and dogs.

Today, horned lizards are harder to find in many parts of Texas than they were years ago. Scientists think there are several reasons. Some of the land where the lizards once lived is now covered by roads and buildings, and in many areas there are fewer harvester ants for them to eat. In Texas, it is against the law to take a horned lizard from the wild or to keep one as a pet.

Do you have books at home that you have already read? Trade them for books that are new to you!

When: Friday, 7:45 to 8:30 a.m., before the first bell

Where: Lakeview Elementary library

How it works: Bring up to five books in good condition. For each book you bring, you will get one ticket. Trade one ticket for one book from the swap tables.

Please check your books first. Books with torn pages or writing inside cannot be swapped. Chapter books, comic books, and picture books are all welcome.

Books that are left over at the end will be donated to the public library in town.

Questions? Ask Ms. Ibarra in the library.

Valeria had practiced the dance for six weeks. She knew every heel tap and every swirl of her wide, ruffled skirt. But on the night of the folklórico recital, standing behind the curtain, her legs felt like wet noodles.

“What if I forget the steps?” she whispered to her sister Nayeli, who had danced with the group for three years.

Nayeli straightened the red ribbons in Valeria’s hair. “Then you keep smiling and keep moving,” she said. “Nobody in the audience knows the steps. They only notice if you stop.”

The music began, and the dancers swept onto the stage. For the first minute, everything went perfectly. Then, halfway through the song, Valeria turned the wrong way. For one terrible second, she was facing the girl beside her instead of the audience.

She remembered Nayeli’s words. She smiled, swung her skirt in a wide circle, and slipped back into line as if she had planned it all along. Her feet found the rhythm again.

When the song ended, the audience clapped and cheered. Valeria’s parents were standing up in the third row. Afterward, her father hugged her and said, “That big spin in the middle was my favorite part!”

Valeria looked at Nayeli, and both of them burst out laughing.

On summer evenings, crowds of people gather near the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin. They are not waiting for a parade or a concert. They are waiting for bats.

Up to one and a half million Mexican free-tailed bats live in narrow cracks under the bridge during the warm months. It is the largest bat colony living in a city anywhere in North America. In the winter, most of the bats fly south to Mexico.

At sunset, the bats begin to pour out from under the bridge. They fly out in long, dark ribbons that twist across the sky, and the stream of bats can keep going for many minutes.

The bats are leaving to hunt. Mexican free-tailed bats eat insects, including moths that damage farm crops. In one night, the colony can eat thousands of pounds of insects.

Not everyone was happy when the bats first moved in. After the bridge was rebuilt, the bats found the new cracks underneath and began living there. Many people in Austin were afraid and wanted the bats gone. Bat scientists explained that the bats would not hurt people who left them alone, and that they helped the city by eating pests. Over time, people’s feelings changed. Today, the bats are one of the most famous sights in Austin.

Along the Texas coast, many beaches have hills of sand behind them. These hills are called dunes. They may look like piles of sand that the wind blew together, and that is partly true. But dunes also protect the land behind them.

Dunes form when the wind blows dry sand away from the water’s edge. The sand piles up against things such as plants, seaweed, or pieces of driftwood. Little by little, the piles grow taller.

Plants are what hold a dune together. Sea oats and other grasses grow on the dunes. Their long roots spread through the sand like a net and keep it from blowing or washing away.

During a big storm, high waves crash onto the beach. A healthy dune can help block the waves and slow down the water before it reaches roads and houses.

Because dunes are so important, people are asked to stay off them. Walking on a dune crushes the plants, and without plants, the sand can blow away. Many beaches have wooden walkways that let visitors cross over the dunes without stepping on them.

You will need: 2 cups of vanilla yogurt, 1 spoonful of honey, 1 cup of chopped strawberries, a handful of blueberries, a baking pan, and wax paper.

Step 1: Line the baking pan with wax paper.

Step 2: In a bowl, stir the honey into the yogurt.

Step 3: Spread the yogurt evenly across the wax paper, about as thick as your finger.

Step 4: Sprinkle the strawberries and blueberries on top. Press them down gently so they stick.

Step 5: Put the pan in the freezer for at least three hours, until the yogurt is hard.

Step 6: Break the bark into pieces and serve it right away. It melts fast!

Ask an adult to help you chop the strawberries.

A rain gauge is a tool that measures how much rain falls. The simplest kind is a clear tube with lines and numbers on the side, like a ruler. You place it outside in an open spot, away from trees and roofs, so that rain can fall straight into it.

After a storm, you read the number at the top of the water. If the water reaches the line marked 1, then one inch of rain fell. Remember to empty the gauge after you read it. Otherwise, rain from the next storm will be added to the old water, and your measurement will not be accurate. Many weather watchers check their gauge at the same time every day and write the number in a notebook. After a month, they can see which weeks were wet and which were dry.

The Rio Grande is one of the longest rivers in North America. It begins high in the mountains of Colorado, where melting snow runs into it. From there it flows south through New Mexico. Then it turns southeast and forms the border between Texas and Mexico for more than a thousand miles, until it reaches the Gulf near Brownsville.

In Mexico, people call the same river the Río Bravo. For thousands of years, people have used its water to drink, to grow crops, and to raise animals. Today, cities and farms on both sides of the border still depend on it. In very dry years, the water in some parts of the river gets very low, and people must be careful about how much they use.

Last fall, our class planted a small garden outside the window of Room 14. At first the dirt was hard and dry, and nothing grew. Then Mr. Adebayo showed us how to mix in compost and water the beds every morning. We were careful not to step on the tiny seedlings.

By spring we had lettuce, radishes, and carrots. The cafeteria even used some of our lettuce in a salad. Now, whenever the dirt looks dry, someone grabs the watering can. Nobody wants the garden to look lifeless again. Mr. Adebayo says that next year we can try tomatoes and peppers too, if we take good care of the soil over the summer.