Dry Tortugas National Park

Dry Tortugas National Park

Dry Tortugas National Park

A Short Reader

Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	5.18

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		reefs, sandbar, scuba, military, mainland, interesting, supplies, however, longer, connect, government, cluster, early, future, life, body
	content words:		Fort Jefferson, Tortugas National Park, Key West, Dry Tortugas, United States, President Franklin Roosevelt, Dry Tortugas National Park, National Park

Print Dry Tortugas National Park

Print Dry Tortugas National Park (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 Dry Tortugas National Park

Leave your feedback on Dry Tortugas National Park (use this link if you found an error in the story)

Dry Tortugas National Park
By Meg Leonard

¹     Caption: Fort Jefferson

²     Dry Tortugas National Park is in Florida. It is in the Gulf of Mexico. Key West is seventy miles east of Dry Tortugas. The park is made up of islands, shoals, and water. There is a cluster of seven islands made from coral reefs and sand. A shoal is a sandbar. It is a place in a body of water where sand and rocks are deposited. Some of the gulf waters are also included in the park.

³     The word "Tortuga" means turtle in Spanish. A Spanish explorer named Ponce de Leon discovered this cluster of islands in 1513. The United States became interested in these islands in the early 1800s. The military began building a fort here in 1846. The fort was never completed. People invented better weapons. The fort was no longer needed. Today, you can visit Fort Jefferson at the park. You can see how forts were built of bricks many years ago. Workers are repairing the fort to save it for future generations.

Paragraphs 4 to 5:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

Copyright © 2009 edHelper