Illinois Assessment of Readiness English Language Arts Reading Grade 5

The card on the school garden gate in Champaign is for the class pepper plants. Sprouts appear 12 days after planting. The plants are ready 50 days after they sprout, not 50 days after they are planted.

Luis planted on a Monday and called that morning day 0. He circled day 50 on his chart. On day 12 the first sprouts opened. Ms. Patel moved the harvest clip. She told Luis to start the 50 days when the sprouts appear. Harvest is planting day plus 12 plus 50. Day 0 plus 12 plus 50 is day 62.

On day 50 the plants had flowers and tiny peppers that were still hard and pale. The class left them on the stems. On day 62 the peppers were full and deep green, and the class picked them. The 50 on the card had always belonged to the days after sprouting.

I used to live in Evanston, where the lake wind covered most night sounds. The first week at my aunt's house in Carbondale, the trees started a loud, rattling chorus after sunset. I wrote in my notebook that something was wrong with the woods. I thought the noise meant animals were warning one another to flee.

My cousin Andre walked me to the back fence. He pointed at a small insect on the maple trunk. "Those are cicadas," he said. "The males call to be found. The chorus is loud because there are many of them, not because the woods are in trouble." He had me count ten calls without seeing a single animal run.

I crossed out my first sentence. Under it I wrote, "The dark has a drum, and the drum is a call." The sound did not get quieter. What changed was the reason I gave it. Loud no longer meant danger.

Our class visited Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville. In the museum, a map used a blue circle beside a large mound. I told my partner the circle was a lake where people had fished. The label under the map was two sentences long, and I had read only the first, which mentioned water used by the city.

The guide, Mr. Ellis, asked me to read the second sentence aloud. It said the blue circle marks a borrow pit, a place where workers dug earth to build the mound. Rain could stand in the pit later, but the circle on this map was the dug-out source of the mound, not a lake drawn for fishing.

I added a line to my worksheet: "Blue names the pit, and the pit names the digging." My partner erased the word lake. The color had not lied. I had stopped before the sentence that gave the color its job.

At the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, the junior pickle table follows a card the club posted. A jar with a county ribbon already on it has been judged somewhere else and cannot be entered here. A jar with a blank tag may be entered, and the judges at this table will decide its place.

Mina carried Grandma's bread-and-butter pickles. A red county ribbon hung on the jar. Mina hoped the ribbon would impress the Springfield judges. Mrs. Holt pointed to the card. "The ribbon means this jar already had its contest. This table is for blank tags. Admiration is not an entry."

Mina went to the club tent and packed a second jar that morning, with a blank tag and no ribbon. That jar went on the table. Grandma's ribboned jar stayed in the cooler. The pickles inside the two jars tasted the same to Mina. The tags did not do the same job.

On a school hike at Mississippi Palisades State Park near Savanna, the lead card said how to read the paint. One yellow mark means the trail continues straight. Two yellow marks stacked one above the other mean the trail turns at that tree. A worn spot in the leaves is not a mark.

I saw a smooth path of packed dirt leaving the trail and started down it. The dirt looked used, so I called it the way. Mr. Shah whistled me back. The tree at the real turn had two stacked yellow marks, and the smooth path had no paint at all. "Feet can wear a shortcut," he said. "Paint is the sentence we agreed to follow."

We took the turn the two marks named. Later a single yellow mark showed on a straight stretch, and we passed it without turning. I wrote both signs in my log. The shortcut stayed in the woods, unused by us, even though it was the smoother walk.

Dear Amira, you asked what I see from the point at Cairo, where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi. I used to write that the water was one wide lake. Yesterday I stood with my uncle at the point. The Ohio side ran gray-green. The Mississippi side ran browner. They slid beside each other for a long way before they mixed.

Two colors meant two rivers, even though both are water. You wrote that Lake Michigan at Chicago is one body, and a change in color there is usually the sky or the sand. That fits your shore. It does not fit this meeting of rivers.

I crossed out "one lake" and wrote "two currents sharing a channel." The page can hold your lake and my point. They are not the same fact, and the letter has room for both.

The park board beside the Quincy river walk uses the Mississippi gauge. When the board shows 18 feet or higher, the riverside path closes. A reading under 18 feet leaves the path open. How wide the water looks from the railing is not the rule. The number is.

On Tuesday the gauge read 16 feet. The river covered the lowest rocks and looked high to Nora. She told her uncle the path should close. He tapped the board. "Sixteen is under eighteen. Looking high is not the same as reaching the number that closes the path." They walked the path.

A photo on the board showed Thursday's reading: 19 feet, with the path gate shut. Friday morning the gauge was back to 17 feet, and the gate was open again. Nora wrote, "19 shut it. 16 and 17 did not." The river had looked wide on all three days.

At the Naperville library, a blue slip in the door holder reserves a study room until the time printed on the slip. When the holder is empty, the room is free. A backpack or a jacket inside a room does not extend a time that has already passed, and it does not reserve a room that has no slip.

At 3:10, Priya needed a room. Room B had a blue slip that said "until 4:00," and a backpack was on the chair. Room C had a blue slip that said "until 3:00," and a jacket was on the table. Room D had an empty holder and bare chairs. Priya's friend said they should take Room B because nobody was sitting in the chair.

The librarian, Mr. Chen, read the slips with her. "Room B is reserved until 4:00, so 3:10 is still inside that time. Room C's time ended at 3:00, so the jacket does not keep it. An empty holder on Room D also means free." Priya chose Room C, left the jacket with the desk, and set her own slip for until 4:10.

The beach sign in Evanston, along Lake Michigan, uses two flags in winter. A blue flag means the sand path is open. A black flag means shelf ice may look solid and the path is closed. People standing far out on the ice are not a signal. The flag is.

On Sunday the black flag was up. A group stood far from shore on a pale shelf, waving. Jonah started down the sand. His sister Maya caught his sleeve. "They are not the sign," she said. "Black means closed, even if the shelf looks like a floor and even if people are already on it."

They stayed on the street above the beach. The next Saturday the blue flag was flying, the shelf was gone, and the sand path was open. Jonah walked it. He wrote that the crowd had been large on the closed day and small on the open day. The flag had not followed the crowd.

On the rural mail route near Galena, a raised red flag on a roadside box means the box holds outgoing mail for the carrier. A lowered flag means the carrier should not stop for outgoing mail. The flag does not mean a person is home, and it does not mean a package has arrived.

On Monday morning, Wes raised the flag on the empty box because he liked how it looked. The carrier, Ms. Donnelly, stopped, opened an empty box, and lowered the flag. She left a pencil note: "Up means I should find mail going out. Empty and up costs a stop." Wes felt his face heat.

On Tuesday he put a letter to his grandfather inside and raised the flag again. Ms. Donnelly took the letter and lowered the flag. That afternoon the flag stayed down, and she did not stop, because nothing in the box was asking to go out. Wes wrote the two mornings on one line: "Up with a letter works. Up with nothing only wastes the stop."

The stand on the road between Bloomington and Normal sells sweet corn by a rule painted on the bin. An ear is ready when the silk at the tip is brown and dry. Green silk means the ear stays on the stalk, even if the ear feels thick. Thick is not the test. The silk is.

Carmen pulled an ear from a tall stalk because the husk felt full in her hand. The silk was bright green. Uncle Nate had her peel it. The kernels were watery and small. He handed her a shorter ear whose silk was brown and dry. Those kernels were plump, and one kernel let out a milky juice when she pressed it with a thumbnail.

Carmen put the green-silk ear in the compost and the brown-silk ear in the sack. She said the tall stalk had fooled her hand. Uncle Nate nodded. "The stalk can be tall and the silk still green. We pick the silk we were told to pick."

The drawbridge over the Des Plaines River in Joliet shows three lamps to drivers. A red lamp means the span is about to rise. Drivers already on the span continue across. Drivers at the stop line stay. A yellow lamp means the span is coming back down, and nobody moves yet. A green lamp means the span is seated, and traffic may roll.

Mr. Ortiz was at the stop line when the lamp turned red. He waited. A driver behind him honked and shouted that yellow would be close enough to start. When the lamp did turn yellow, the span was still inching down, and the tender's voice on the speaker said, "Yellow is not a start. Wait for green."

The gap in the road closed, the lamp turned green, and the line moved. The honking driver crossed only after that green. Mr. Ortiz told his daughter, "Red held us because we were not yet on the span. Yellow kept holding us. Green was the permission."

The seed exchange at an Urbana library occupied one shelf and a wide table. Visitors left extra seeds in labeled envelopes and took small amounts for their gardens. Ms. Green asked the student helpers to keep the growing instructions attached to every envelope.

Noor found a packet with two names. The printed label said “short red pepper.” Under it, someone had penciled “sweet lantern.” The picture showed a round pepper, but the envelope held a different-looking seed from the one in a nearby pepper packet. Noor reached for the scrap-paper basket.

Her brother Eli stopped her. “Maybe the picture is old,” he said. “Maybe the pencil name is right.” Noor argued that a printed label looked more dependable. Ms. Green gave neither child a replacement label. She handed them the exchange log.

The log listed the donor, the plant name, and a note for each packet. Beside this envelope’s number, the donor had written that it was a reused pepper packet containing flower seeds. “Sweet lantern” was the flower’s name in the donor’s garden. There were no growing instructions. The donor had left a phone number for questions.

Noor called with Ms. Green beside her. The donor explained that she had saved the seeds from a flower, not a pepper. She had kept no record of the variety and could not promise its name. She offered to bring a photograph and write what she knew about growing it.

The children put the envelope in a tray marked “Check before sharing.” Eli began making a neat new label with “sweet lantern” in large letters. Noor asked him to leave room under the name. When the donor arrived, they added “flower; variety uncertain” and attached her growing notes. The printed pepper picture stayed visible beneath the new label, crossed through with a single line.

A week later, a gardener chose the envelope after reading both the notes and the uncertainty. Noor entered that choice in the log. She no longer thought every blank needed to be filled with a confident answer.

At Montrose Harbor, a class began a bird-counting project. Each Tuesday, students stood at the same fence for ten minutes and counted geese in a marked part of the lawn. Their notebooks held three weeks of numbers: 18, 21, and 19. The fourth Tuesday produced a count of 3.

Devon wrote “Most geese have left the harbor.” He liked that sentence because it seemed to explain the sudden difference. His partner Lucia asked whether they had counted the water. They had not. Their project area ended at the lawn’s edge.

That morning, grounds workers had set orange cones across the grass. A small machine rattled near the usual feeding area. From the fence, Lucia could see several geese on the water, outside the marked counting area. Devon wanted to add them to the number. Lucia kept the lawn count at 3 and wrote a separate note about the water and the machine.

The following Tuesday, the cones were gone. Seventeen geese stood in the marked lawn area. Devon started to erase his sentence about the missing birds. Their teacher asked him to keep it, draw a line through it, and write why he was changing his mind.

The class discussed possible explanations. The machine might have disturbed the birds, or food and weather might have affected where they went. No one had followed individual geese. The notes could show where the class saw birds at a particular time, but could not track the movements of every bird in the harbor.

For their display, Devon drew two panels. The first showed the lawn counts as bars. The second held notes about cones, rain, and birds outside the boundary. He suggested a new project: a second group could count a defined part of the water during the same ten minutes. Lucia measured the blank space available for that plan. They did not write the new numbers in advance.

At a pizza shop in Rockford, the card above the prep table says the dough is ready when it has doubled in size. A clock time is not the test. In a cold kitchen the dough may still be small when 30 minutes have passed. In a warm corner it may double sooner. Size is the step. The minutes are only a guess.

On a cold morning, Renata set a pan on the steel table. After 30 minutes the dough had barely risen. She wanted to stretch it anyway so the lunch pies would start. Owner Mrs. Kowalski slid the pan away from the door draft and waited until the dough had truly doubled. That took 45 minutes. Those pies rose with airy edges.

On a warm afternoon, a pan near the oven doubled in 18 minutes. Mrs. Kowalski used it then, before 30 minutes had passed. She added a line to the card: "Doubled is ready, whether the clock is at 18 or at 45. Thirty minutes is not a magic finish."

I visited Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, near Wilmington, on a day when smoke lifted beyond the grass. I wrote that the prairie was dying. The smoke smelled sharp, and a black patch lay where green stems had been that morning. I wanted the trucks to leave so the field could be left alone.

Ranger Hale walked me to the gravel. Crew members in yellow shirts stood by trucks with the doors open, watching a low flame. A map on a clipboard showed a black line around one section and an arrow for a west wind. "This burn was planned," she said. "The line is the edge we set. The wind today moves the flame the way the plan asks. A fire with no crew and no line would be a different event."

That evening the flame was out, and the crew drove away on the same gravel. I replaced my sentence. The prairie was not dying. It was being opened so new grass could come through the black patch. Fear had described the smoke. The map and the yellow shirts had described the plan.

For a class project in Chicago, Jamal’s group designed a fictional transit map for a town with a river. Their map had a blue local route that stopped at every station and a green express route that stopped only at stations marked with squares. The museum station was a circle. Jamal drew the green line almost straight across the paper, with the blue line bending through neighborhoods.

“The green route looks faster,” he said. He wrote “Museum visitors: choose green” beneath the map. His partner Inez placed a paper passenger at the starting station and tried to follow the advice. The passenger passed the museum without stopping.

Jamal pointed to how close the express line came to the museum symbol. Inez pointed to the station key. The line passed nearby, but the key did not show a stop there. They added an express square at the museum. Now the passenger could get off. However, the group’s project rules allowed only four express stops, and they had already used four.

The students argued about which stop to remove. One square served the hospital and another the only bridge across the river. A third served a busy market, and the last connected to a bus route. Jamal moved the museum symbol, then moved it back. Changing the drawing was easy; explaining what the change would cost was harder.

They invited another group to test both routes with passenger cards. Some cards named the museum; others named the hospital or market. The visitors asked for a list of express stops before choosing. One suggested showing the destination names beside the station symbols.

In the final version, the museum remained a local stop. Jamal replaced his first advice with a small route guide. It named where each service stopped and showed one transfer option. He kept the unused green square in the margin, labeled “An idea we considered.” On presentation day, he began by handing the audience a passenger card instead of telling them which route looked faster.