Read grade-level stories and articles with scaffolding as needed, and use prior knowledge to make connections and comparisons

Learning goal: This lesson teaches Ohio's 2026 standards RL.5.10 and RI.5.10, first implemented in 2027-28. You will read and comprehend grade-level literary text with scaffolding as needed, and grade-level informational text with scaffolding and support as needed, and you will use prior knowledge and previous experiences to make text-to-self or text-to-text connections and comparisons.

What "scaffolding as needed" means. A scaffold is a temporary support that helps you understand a text better than you could alone right now. Builders put scaffolding up where they are working and leave it off where the wall can already stand. Reading scaffolds work the same way: they are chosen for a particular text and a particular reader. The words as needed matter. Using a scaffold is not a sign of failure, and this standard does not ask you to read every grade-level text with no help at all. It asks you to understand grade-level texts, using the support a text calls for and leaving out support you do not need. The same reader might need a list of key terms for an article about canal locks and no support at all for a story about a family trip.

Scaffolds for literary text. A preview of the setting and characters; a stop at each change of scene to retell what happened; a guiding question, such as "What is Nia afraid of, and how do you know?"; listening to a passage read aloud while you follow the words; talking with a partner; a quick sketch of the setting.

Scaffolds and support for informational text. A preview of the title, headings and any diagram; a short list of key terms with their meanings; a labeled diagram; a sequence chart for steps in a process; reading one paragraph at a time and restating it in your own words; a partner or teacher who can answer a question the text leaves open.

How to decide what you need. Check your understanding as you read. After each chunk, a paragraph or a scene, try to say what it was about in one sentence. If you can, keep reading. If you cannot, choose the support that fits the problem. A word you cannot work out calls for a key-term list, a glossary or a dictionary. A process you cannot picture calls for a diagram or your own sketch. Losing track of events or steps calls for a retelling at each stop or a sequence chart. Not being sure what a character feels calls for a guiding question and a reread of the lines that show what the character says and does. Not knowing what the text is about at all calls for a second preview and some background. Tell your teacher which support you used and why. You will need fewer supports for kinds of text you read often, but a new topic or a new kind of text can call for them again, and that is expected.

Prior knowledge and previous experiences. Before reading, ask two questions. What do I already know about this topic? That is prior knowledge: for example, water runs downhill, and a bathtub fills from a faucet. What has happened to me that is like this? That is a previous experience: for example, riding an elevator, or feeling uneasy in a small, crowded room. Both help you picture the text and predict what will happen.

Connections and comparisons. A text-to-self connection links a text to your own life. A text-to-text connection links it to another text. A comparison names how two things are alike and how they are different. A connection helps only when it sends you back to the text and explains something in it. "I have been on a boat" is only a memory. "I have been in a crowded elevator and held tight to the rail until the doors opened, which helps me see why Nia, who 'did not like small spaces,' grabs the edge of the bench" is a connection, because it explains a line with a reason the text itself gives.

Original story — The Rising Walls

Grandpa had promised a boat ride, but he had not said anything about walls.

The canal boat was long and flat and painted green, with benches down the middle. Two brown mules named Pete and Dolly waited on the towpath, harnessed to a rope as thick as Nia's wrist. When the driver clicked her tongue, the mules leaned forward, the rope lifted out of the water, and the boat began to glide.

For a while it was the best thing Nia had ever done. Turtles slid off logs as the boat passed. A heron stood in the shallows like a gray umbrella someone had forgotten to open.

Then the boat stopped in front of two tall wooden gates. The gates swung open, the mules pulled the boat into a narrow stone room with no roof, and the gates closed behind them with a heavy thump.

Nia did not like small spaces. The walls rose higher than a house, dark and wet, with a stripe of green moss near the waterline. She grabbed the edge of the bench.

"We're stuck," she whispered.

"We're in a lock," Grandpa said. "Watch the moss."

Up ahead, a man turned a crank. Water began to pour in through openings in the front gates, churning white and loud. Nia shut her eyes. When she opened them, the stripe of moss was lower than it had been. She looked again. The moss was below the side of the boat now, and the tops of the walls were closer.

"The walls aren't shrinking," Nia said slowly. "We're going up."

"The water is carrying us," Grandpa said. "No engine. No pump. Just water coming down from the higher part of the canal."

By the time the front gates opened, Nia was standing. Beyond them, the canal stretched on at its new level, and she could see across a cornfield to a red barn that had been hidden before.

"Can we do it again on the way back?" she asked.

Grandpa laughed. "On the way back, the walls grow."

Original article — How a Canal Lock Lifts a Boat

A canal is a waterway people dig so that boats can travel where no river goes. Land is rarely flat, though, and water does not flow uphill. When a canal has to climb a slope, it climbs in steps called locks.

A lock is a long chamber with walls on both sides and a pair of gates at each end. The water on the uphill side of the lock is higher than the water on the downhill side. The gates have small openings, often called valves, that the lock keeper can open or close.

Here is how a lock lifts a boat that is traveling uphill. First, the water in the chamber is lowered to the level of the lower canal, and the lower gates open. The boat moves into the chamber, and the lower gates close behind it. Next, the lock keeper opens the valves in the upper gates. Water from the higher canal pours into the chamber, and as the water rises, it lifts the boat with it. When the water in the chamber is level with the upper canal, the upper gates open, and the boat moves out onto the higher level. A boat going downhill follows the same steps in reverse, and the water is let out through the lower valves.

A lock needs no pump. Water flows from a higher level to a lower one whenever it has a path, so gravity fills and empties the chamber. People only have to open and close the gates and valves.

In the 1800s, Ohio built canals that crossed the state, and boats on them passed through many locks. Mules or horses walked along a path beside the canal, called a towpath, and pulled the boats with long ropes. Some old stone locks can still be seen in Ohio parks today.

Two kinds of text, one topic. The story and the article describe the same thing, a boat rising in a lock, for different purposes. The article explains how a lock works, step by step, for any reader. The story shows what being inside a lock feels like for one girl and leaves the reader to figure out, along with Nia, what is happening.

Worked example 1 — Choosing scaffolds as needed for the article. Reader A has never seen a canal. Before reading, she previews the title and the key terms chamber, gate and valve. She reads one paragraph at a time and restates each. At "the water in the chamber is lowered to the level of the lower canal," she cannot picture it, so she sketches a box with a gate at each end and draws the water line low, then high. Reader B once rode through a lock on a family trip. He skips the key terms and uses only a sequence chart to keep the steps in order. Both read the same grade-level article, each uses the support he or she needs, and both show understanding the same way: by retelling the steps in order and explaining why no pump is needed.

Worked example 2 — A text-to-self connection that returns to the text. Previous experience: "In an elevator, the doors close and I cannot see anything moving, but I know I am going up." Connection: "Nia cannot see herself moving either. That is why she first thinks the walls are what is changing. The story shows her working it out by watching the moss: 'the stripe of moss was lower than it had been,' and then 'the tops of the walls were closer.'" The connection is useful because it explains why she says, "The walls aren't shrinking."

Worked example 3 — A text-to-text comparison. Alike: both texts show a boat entering a chamber, gates closing behind it and water pouring in to lift it, and both say no pump is used ("No engine. No pump." and "A lock needs no pump."). Different: the article explains every step in order and the reason, gravity, so any reader can follow the process; the story shows only what Nia sees, hears and feels, and it never names the steps. Reading the article explains the story's details (the man turning a crank is the lock keeper opening the valves); reading the story shows what those steps feel like from inside the chamber.

Reading plan (record task): Before reading each text, write one thing you already know about the topic and one experience that is like it. Choose up to two supports from this lesson for each text and write why you chose them. While reading, mark each place you stopped to check your understanding and what you did there. After reading, retell the story in five sentences and list the lock steps in order.

Connection and comparison: Write one text-to-self connection to the story and one text-to-text comparison between the story and the article. Each must quote a line and explain what the connection or comparison helps you understand.

Independent performance: Your teacher gives you a new grade-level story and a new grade-level article on a shared topic. Read both, choosing scaffolds as needed. Keep a log of which supports you used, where and why, including any you decided you did not need. Then write a summary of each text, one text-to-self connection and one text-to-text comparison. Success criteria: your summaries keep the order of events or steps and include only what the texts support; your log matches each support to a problem you noticed; your connection names an experience or prior knowledge and explains a specific line; your comparison names at least one likeness and one difference, each with evidence from both texts.