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Digestive System

Digestion in the Mouth (Grades 5-6)

Digestion in the Mouth (Grades 5-6)
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   5.03

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    gradual, digestion, erosion, esophagus, automatic, factor, acidic, thereby, therefore, buds, jobs, digestive, acid, beginning, role, growth

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Digestion in the Mouth
By Jennifer Kenny 		  
1     Where do you think digestion begins? Most people automatically think of the stomach when they think of digestion. Actually, though, digestion starts in the mouth as the first workstation in the digestive process.
 
2     Food, of course, is ground up by our teeth. We chew without thinking. The jaw muscles pull the jaw up and down, thereby crushing the food and making it softer and smaller.
 
3     When you are chewing, glands make saliva. Two quarts of saliva are produced each day. Saliva is constantly produced, but more of it is made when we eat. Smelling, seeing, or thinking about food gets the process of making more saliva started. Talk about a mouth-watering meal!

Paragraphs 4 to 10:
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