Before Columbus

Before Columbus

Before Columbus
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 5 to 7
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	9.15

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		cover-up, re-discover, historical, monk, discover, theory, fiction, supposedly, legend, traveled, aboard, record, history, route, explorer, nearly
	content words:		Discover America, Native Americans, South American, Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus, South America, New World, New England, North America, Prince Madoc

Print Before Columbus
edHelper.com subscriber options:

	Print Before Columbus (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)
	Quickly print reading comprehension
	Print a proofreading activity

Feedback on Before Columbus

Leave your feedback on Before Columbus (use this link if you found an error in the story)

Other Languages
Spanish: Antes de Colón

Before Columbus
By Sharon Fabian

¹     "Discover America." That's what the vacation brochures say. Anyone can take a trip in an RV and discover America. Native Americans were traveling all over the North and South American continents and discovering America long before Columbus sailed in aboard the Santa Maria. Yet history books say that Christopher Columbus discovered America. Why do they say that? Who really discovered America?

²     Were the native Americans really always here, or did they travel here from another continent too? Some people think that, a very long time ago, early people traveled across land from Russia to America, arriving in what is now Alaska. If you look at a world map, you will see that Russia and Alaska are not nearly as far apart as you might think, and they may have been connected at one time long ago.

³     Moving forward in history a little, now the native Americans have been here for thousands of years, but people on all of the other continents of the world don't even know that North and South America existed. Who will be the first person now to discover, or re-discover America?

⁴     We do know that, in 1492, Columbus arrived in America and at that time people in Europe, where he had come from, didn't even knew that America existed. He wasn't even looking for America, remember? He was looking for a shorter route to the Indies.

Paragraphs 5 to 12:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

Copyright © 2008 edHelper