edHelper.com
Disabilities
 Taylor Finds Her Smile

Taylor Finds Her Smile
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 3 to 5
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.18

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    unseen, doorway, mass, medium, anger, caption, celebration, tears, onto, charcoal, daughter, home, amount, cranky, holding, somehow
     content words:    Brom Wikstrom

Print Taylor Finds Her Smile
     Print Taylor Finds Her Smile  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)

Quickly Print - PDF format
     Quickly Print: PDF (2 columns per page)
     Quickly Print: PDF (full page)

Quickly Print - HTML format
     Quickly Print: HTML

Proofreading Activity
     Print a proofreading activity

Feedback on Taylor Finds Her Smile
     Leave your feedback on Taylor Finds Her Smile  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

Taylor Finds Her Smile
By Mary Lynn Bushong 		  
1     Caption: Mouth-painted by Brom Wikstrom "Home"
 
2     Taylor closed her eyes. So much for planning ahead, she thought. Ever since she had discovered how to draw, Taylor had focused her mind on one future, becoming an artist.
 
3     First, she had practiced her drawing with pencils; then she had worked at mastering charcoal, conté, and ink. Each medium had certain difficulties but also aspects that she loved.
 
4     Then she learned how to paint, first with watercolors and gouache (gwash) and then with acrylic and oil paints.
 
5     Sculpture was fun, too, but somehow the paint and a blank canvas called to her. At least it used to.
 
6     Taylor tried not to think further; it only made her head hurt. It was the only part of her that could feel pain now.
 
7     Days stretched into weeks. Hospital rehab claimed some of her time, but she didn't care. The car accident had broken her neck, and no amount of rehab was going to change that.
 
8     Taylor stopped holding images in her mind. It had been fun to analyze the play of light and shadow in the images and then try to decide how to apply the colors to achieve the same effect. Now it was a pointless exercise. Her hands were as useless as her legs.
 
9     The day Taylor finally moved home again should have been cause for celebration. She was glad to be home, but it didn't change anything.

Paragraphs 10 to 23:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Copyright © 2009 edHelper