The Katydid

 The Katydid - Reading lesson, story  

By LINA M JOHNS AND MAY AVERILL 
Teachers Dodgeville Public Schools Dodgeville Wisconsin 
ILLUSTRATION BY DORIS L HOWARD 

Listen to the katydids. 

They are playing their fiddles. 

They like to play at twilight. 

Sometimes we hear them in the daytime.

Where are their fiddles? 

Their fiddles are their wings. 

Their bows are their wings, too. 

They rub their wings together. 

The sound they make is, "Katy did, 

Katy did, Katy did." 

Listen and you will hear it. 

The katydid is a light green color. 

It lives in the grass and leaves. 

It lives in the trees, too. 

It is hard to find. 

The birds cannot see it. 

Birds like to eat katydids. 

The green color hides the katydids 

from the birds. 

Katydids have long straight antennae. 

The antennae are fastened to the katydids' heads. 

They can move their antennae. 

They can make their antennae lie on their backs. 

They can stick them straight out in front.

They can move them to the side. 

They feel with their antennae. 

Katydids have thin wings. 

The wings have a framework. 

The framework looks like the veins in a leaf. 

Katydids lay their eggs on the leaves of the trees. 

Sometimes they lay them 

on the twigs of the trees. 

Young katydids are small. 

They are light green.

Of the 73 words used in this story, 47 are found in the first 500 of Arthur I Gates's "A Reading Vocab ulary for the Primary Grades." There are 7 in the second 500 and 10 in the third. The remaining 9 words are: antennae, daytime, fasten, frame, work, fiddle, katydid, together, twilight, vein.