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Answer 4 out of 5 questions correctly.

Listen and read along with the passage about Thomas Edison.

Thomas Edison sitting next to a phonograph

Thomas Edison was born in 1847. Back then, life was very different. There were no TVs, phones, or computers. Edison was a very curious child. When he was young, he turned his family's basement into his laboratory. A laboratory is a place where people make and test things. Even though Edison loved to learn, he did not do well in school. So, his mother taught him at home. He read books to learn. His favorite books were about science.

When Edison was around the age of twelve, he got very sick and had a high fever. After that, he could not hear very well. Edison believed that his difficulty hearing helped him pay close attention to his work.

Edison loved figuring out new ways to do things. When he grew up, he became an inventor. An inventor is a person who thinks of new ideas and makes things that nobody made before. The new things they make are called inventions. Inventions fix problems and make life easier for people.

One of Edison's inventions was called the phonograph. A phonograph records and plays back sounds so people can listen to something again and again. People used it to listen to music.

Not all of Thomas Edison's inventions were successes. He invented a machine to count votes. But people did not want to use it. When Edison's ideas didn't work, he tried even harder. He said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

When Thomas Edison was born, how was life different from today?

Computers were much smaller than they are today.

Some people had televisions, but some people did not.

Most families had larger homes than they do today.

People did not have many of the machines we use today.

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