• Practice for every day of the school year • Help students prepare for standardized testing

DAY
4
Remind students of the 
Prediction
skill. Then remind students of the 
Make Connections 
strategy. 
Say: By making connections, you use past experiences to help you understand what you read. 
These connections also help you make predictions. Then read the instructions at the top of the 
page aloud. Have students read the passage. When students have finished, direct them to complete 
the skill practice activity. Review the answers together. For the strategy practice activity, pair 
students or complete it as a group.
DAY
5
Tell students they will practice both the 
Author’s Purpose
and 
Prediction 
skills. Review the skills if 
necessary. Then inform students they will read about mules that work for the post office. Read 
the instructions at the top of the page aloud. Then remind students of the 
Ask Question
s strategy. 
Direct students to read the passage and to complete the skill practice activity. Review the answers 
together. For the strategy practice activity, pair students or complete it as a group.
Author’s Purpose
Students think about why an author wrote a particular passage.
Prediction
Students use clues from the text and their own background knowledge to 
anticipate what is likely to happen next or what information will come next.
3453.indb 142
5/6/10 4:00 PM

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Name: 
© Evan-Moor Corp. • EMC 3453 • Daily Reading Comprehension 
143
WEEK 23
DAY 1
READ THE PASSAGE
Think about why the author wrote the passage.
Junk in Space
Outer space is crowded with trash. You won’t find banana peels and plastic 
bags. But there are pieces of booster rockets, paint chips, and bolts. Most of the 
trash is small. About 200,000 pieces are very small. But small pieces cause 
problems. Each piece of trash travels at a high speed. When two pieces crash, 
they explode. They create hundreds of pieces. More pieces means more problems.
Space is crowded with large items, too. Scientists sometimes can prevent 
large things from crashing. In 2008, they moved the International Space Station 
several miles. This stopped the station from hitting a tank of gas. But it is not easy 
to control all the stuff in space. In February 2009, two satellites were traveling at
a speed of 25,000 miles per hour. They hit each other. As a result, they created
a huge cloud of dust and a lot of trash.
Scientists know how to launch things into space. Now they need to figure out 
how to clean up the mess.