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 Can You Touch the Ceiling?

Can You Touch the Ceiling?
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 3 to 4
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.15

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    knowing, pages, trouble, perfectly, whatever, math, task, several, correct, certain, feeling, exactly, tool, ceiling, form, besides

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Can You Touch the Ceiling?
By Joyce Furstenau 		  
1     Nathan was having trouble with math. It seemed as if everything he learned in second grade had vanished. He'd forgotten how to carry in addition. He'd forgotten how to borrow in subtraction. He had even forgotten several of his addition facts. By the time he got home from school, he was feeling pretty low.
 
2     "What's the matter, Nathan?" asked Grandma.
 
3     "Nothing," he answered.
 
4     "You look pretty down in the dumps considering this is only the second day of school," said Grandma.
 
5     "I'm stupid," said Nathan.
 
6     "What?" asked Grandma.
 
7     "I'm stupid. I am the stupidest kid in class. I couldn't do any of the math problems our teacher gave us today," he answered with a scowl.
 
8     Nathan showed Grandma two pages of addition problems on which he had gotten every answer wrong. Grandma could see that he wasn't regrouping when he needed to.

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