Illinois Assessment of Readiness English Language Arts Reading Grade 4

At the bake sale in the Roosevelt School gym in Peoria, Ms. Patel kept a tally on a clipboard. She made one mark for each cookie that was sold. When the sale ended, the tally came to 36. A poster by the gym door said 21 students had worked at the tables.

A helper started to write 36 on the form line labeled students. Ms. Patel covered that line with her hand. "The tally counts cookies," she said. "Twenty-one is the number of students who worked. One student might sell several cookies, so 36 is not the number of students."

Eight cookies were left unsold. Ms. Patel boxed those eight and set them aside. They were not in the tally. The tally was only the cookies that had been sold.

The helper erased what he had started on the student line and wrote 21 there. On the line that said cookies sold, he wrote 36.

In a Champaign classroom, Mr. Adeyemi set a lamp on a stool and held a globe. "Earth is tilted," he said. "That tilt is why we have seasons. In December the northern half leans away from the Sun, so days here are shorter and the sunlight is weaker. In June the northern half leans toward the Sun, so days are longer."

A student said winter comes because Earth is farther from the Sun in December. Mr. Adeyemi shook his head. "Distance is not the reason. Earth is a little closer to the Sun in January than in July. Seasons come from the tilt, not from being farther away."

He stuck a paper star on Illinois. When he tipped the north pole away from the lamp, the star got a slanted beam. When he tipped the north pole toward the lamp, the star got a more direct beam. The lamp stayed on the stool. It never moved farther down the hall.

At a Naperville science club, students watched a short video recorded on the Moon. An astronaut released a hammer and a feather from about the same height. They reached the ground together. There was almost no air around them to slow either object.

Back in the classroom, Mrs. Chen held up a sheet of paper and a paper ball made by crumpling an identical sheet. “Which reaches the floor first here?” she asked. Theo chose the ball because it looked heavier. Priya placed the two papers on a balance. The balance stayed level.

Mrs. Chen dropped them. The paper ball reached the floor while the flat sheet was still drifting. Theo picked up both sheets and checked the balance again. It stayed level a second time. He crossed out a sentence in his notebook but did not write a new one yet.

The club tried the drop several more times. The flat sheet sometimes turned or slid sideways, but it always took longer. The students spread the crumpled sheet flat. Now the two sheets drifted down in a more similar way. Priya suggested that shape changed how the air pushed against the paper.

Mrs. Chen drew two headings on the board: “What we observed” and “What we think explains it.” Under the first, Theo wrote that equal-mass papers with different shapes landed at different times. Under the second, he wrote Priya’s idea about air. Mrs. Chen added a note: when air resistance is negligible, objects released together have the same gravitational acceleration regardless of mass.

Theo looked again at the Moon video. The hammer and feather had very different shapes, but there was almost no air to push against them. He drew a line connecting the video to the second heading, leaving enough space beneath it for the club’s next experiment.

After a library night in Evanston, Rosa and her uncle stood on the sidewalk and looked at a crescent Moon. Rosa thought the dark part was a shadow from Earth.

Her uncle pointed along the bright curve. "A crescent is sunlight on the lit half of the Moon. We see only a slice of that lit half. The rest is the Moon's own night, the side turned away from the Sun. It is not a shadow from Earth."

He said an eclipse of the Moon is different and rare. It happens when Earth is directly between the Sun and the Moon and Earth's shadow falls on the Moon. Most nights with a crescent are not eclipses.

They looked again the next week. The bright part was wider. Rosa said it was still sunlight on the lit half, and it was still not an eclipse.

A class from Lockport walked to the Illinois and Michigan Canal to watch a boat go up through a lock. The ranger called the lock a stone box of water with gates at each end. The boat waited on the lower side.

The lower gates opened, and the boat entered. The lower gates closed. Water flowed in from the upper level, and the boat rose. Then the upper gates opened, and the boat left. The ranger said that order is how a boat climbs.

A student asked if the upper gates could open first so they could skip the wait. The ranger said no. "If both ends were open at once, the upper water would rush out, and the boat could not climb." The wait was the climb.

At the downtown Bloomington farmers market, a chalkboard read, "Wildflower honey: one jar 6 dollars, two jars 10 dollars." Priya had 10 dollars in her pocket. A peach at the next table cost 4 dollars.

She reached for one jar and planned to keep 4 dollars for a peach. The beekeeper tapped the second line. "The 10-dollar price is for two jars bought together. If you pay 6 dollars for one, you will have 4 dollars left. A second jar still costs 6 dollars, so you will not have enough."

Priya put the single jar back. She paid 10 dollars for two jars. She had no money left for the peach. She said the pair of jars mattered more to her than the fruit.

In the Rockford school play, the visitor was not supposed to enter until a small bell rang. The bell could ring only after the line "The gate is shut." The director said an early bell would make the audience think the visitor had arrived too soon, and the next scene would not make sense.

At rehearsal the bell rang before the line. The director stopped the scene. "The line is the cue. The bell answers the line. It does not announce it."

On show night Nia said the full line, "The gate is shut." Then the bell rang, and the visitor stepped in. At home she had said that full line eight times so she would not drop a word.

On a field trip in Quincy, a class walked toward a Mississippi River overlook. A sign said, "Stay on the gravel path." The bluff edge was soft after rain. Andre saw a track across the grass that looked shorter and closer to the view.

The ranger shook her head. "That grass crosses soil that can slide. The gravel path is longer, and it ends at the same overlook." A painted arrow on the sign pointed only along the gravel.

They followed the gravel. At the rail they saw the wide river and a long barge. Andre said the grassy track was not a shortcut if the ground could give way.

In the children's room at the Aurora Public Library, shelf labels used colors. Biographies had blue labels and stood on the low shelf by the window. Animal stories had green labels and sat in the bins. Mysteries had red labels and stood on the tall shelf.

Camila needed a book about Jane Addams, a real person, for a class report. She reached into a green bin because she liked the animal covers. The librarian said, "A true story of a person's life is a biography. You need a blue label."

The Jane Addams book was on the low shelf, third from the left. Camila took it. The green bin she had opened held a made-up story about a fox, not a true life.

The bean plants nearest the gate in an Urbana school garden drooped every afternoon. Plants at the other end of the row looked greener. Omar wanted to carry a watering can to the gate whenever he saw a leaf sag. His partner June asked whether the plants were getting different amounts of water in the first place.

The class usually watered near the soil in the morning. Morning watering helped reduce evaporation, and keeping leaves dry reduced some plant-disease problems. There was no rule that water on a sunny leaf would automatically burn it. Still, the drooping corner worried Omar.

Their teacher gave them six empty cups. Before the sprinkler ran the next morning, they placed cups along the row. Afterward, the gate cups held much less water. June found a wooden sign between the sprinkler and that corner. A dark wet patch marked the back of the sign, while the ground behind it was dusty.

Omar moved the sign. He wanted to announce that the problem was solved. June set the cups out again. The next watering left nearly equal amounts in all six. For three days, the two students also checked the soil with their fingers before deciding whether to water. The gate soil stayed damp below the surface, and the leaves gradually looked healthier.

On Friday another class asked to borrow the sprinkler. Omar showed them the hose, then handed over the cups. “Put these where the water is supposed to go,” he said. June carried the sign to a post outside the spray.

The class wrote a garden note: check whether water reaches the roots, and adjust watering to the soil and weather. Omar added a small drawing of the wet sign to help next year’s gardeners remember the corner.

The band room in Elgin used a seating chart shaped like a curve. Flutes sat in the front row on the left. Trumpets sat in the back row in the center. Drums sat at the far right, outside the curve, because their sound was loud. The chart showed four flute chairs and three trumpet chairs.

Leo played trumpet. He sat in a flute chair because it was closer to the door. The director moved him. "Your part enters with the trumpets. If you sit with the flutes, you will miss their cue and come in early."

Leo moved to the back row in the center. When the director pointed to the trumpet section, Leo came in with the other trumpets.

Grandma set a card on the counter in her Oak Park kitchen. The card was for corn muffins they would bring to a school breakfast. Step one said to heat the oven to 375 degrees. Step two said to mix the dry ingredients. Step three said to stir in the milk and the egg. Step four said to fill the cups and bake for 15 minutes. The card said the recipe made 12 muffins.

Mateo wanted to pour in the milk before the oven was hot. "The oven takes too long," he said. Grandma kept the milk carton closed. "Step one has to finish first. If the cups go into a cold oven, the muffins will not rise the same way."

They followed the card in order. The oven reached 375 degrees before anyone mixed the dry ingredients. Then they stirred in the milk and the egg, filled the cups, and baked for 15 minutes. They counted 12 muffins when the pan came out.

A school bus from Joliet stopped at a bridge over the Des Plaines River. The bridge was raised for a tall boat, and a striped warning arm was down across the lane. The museum the class wanted was on the far bank.

A student pointed around the arm. The boat looked slow, and a side street to the right looked open. The driver shook her head. "The arm stays down until the bridge is fully back. The boat has the right of way while the bridge is open. That side street does not cross the river, so it cannot take us to the museum."

They waited four minutes. The bridge lowered. The arm rose. Then the bus drove across to the museum.

The lost-and-found bin at a school in Belleville had a written rule. An item stays in the bin for seven days. After seven days it goes to the donation box.

Kenji's blue mitten had been turned in four days ago. He looked on Friday, and the mitten was still in the bin. He claimed it. A red hat had been turned in eleven days ago. The hat was already in the donation box. The hat was not Kenji's.

The clerk wrote Kenji's name on the mitten log. She did not take the red hat back out of the donation box.

At a community garden in Carbondale, two seed packets lay on the bench. The sunflower packet said to plant the seeds 1 inch deep and 6 inches apart. The lettuce packet said to sprinkle the seeds on top of the soil and not cover them. It also said to leave 8 inches between lettuce rows.

A volunteer started to push the lettuce seeds under an inch of soil, the same way as the sunflowers. The garden lead stopped him. "Each packet is its own rule. Lettuce needs light to sprout. Covering it the sunflower way would hide the seed."

They planted one sunflower row, 1 inch deep, with 6 inches between seeds. They made two lettuce rows, 8 inches apart, and pressed the seeds gently without covering them. Then they watered both with a gentle sprinkle, not a hard spray, so the lettuce seeds would stay where they had been placed.

The printed program for the Moline school concert listed four songs in order. Song one, "River Road," was the quiet opener. Song two, "Clock Tower," included claps. Song three, "Steel Strings," was the song with a violin guest. Song four, "Last Lamp," was the ending. The note at the bottom said the choir would stay on the risers and bow after song four.

During rehearsal a singer started to bow after song two because the claps felt like an ending. The director pointed at the program. "The printed order is the concert. Bows come after song four. The violinist joins only for song three and leaves before song four."

On concert night they followed the paper. The violinist stepped up before song three and stepped down after it. The choir bowed only after "Last Lamp."

On the park map at Buffalo Rock, the picnic shelter was drawn near the top of the page, the parking lot near the bottom, and the creek near the right edge. A north arrow pointed toward the page’s top. The class stood just north of the parking lot. The shelter lay north of them, while the creek lay east.

Lena turned the map sideways to show her friend the tiny bridge printed near the creek. Now the north arrow on the paper pointed toward the actual creek. She began walking in the direction the top of the page was pointing.

“Wait,” said Arjun. He held a compass away from the metal rail. Its north-pointing needle aimed toward a distant shelter roof, to Lena’s left. Lena stopped. The map’s printed arrow and the compass needle pointed in different directions.

They placed the map on a wooden bench and turned it until the north arrow and the needle aimed the same way. The top of the page now pointed toward the shelter roof. The creek drawing was on the map’s right, matching the actual creek to their right.

Arjun checked one more feature. The parking lot was behind them, as the bottom of the map suggested. Only then did they follow the path toward the shelter. At a fork, Lena traced their route with her finger before choosing the left branch.

At lunch she turned the map around again so a younger student could read its labels. This time she did not walk after the page. She left one finger on the shelter symbol and waited while Arjun showed the student how to line up the arrow.