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4th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 13 of 13

Firsthand or Secondhand?

Compare accounts by people who were there with accounts written later.

What your child practices

Children practice telling firsthand accounts (diaries, letters, interviews) from secondhand ones (textbooks, reports, biographies) and what each kind shows best.

Oregon State Standards learning standard: ELA.4.RI.6 · comparing firsthand and secondhand accounts of the same event

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    A reporter watched the race and wrote about it. What kind of account is it?

    • a fable
    • a firsthand account
    • a secondhand account
    • a legend

  2. Question 2

    What is one weakness of a secondhand account?

    • it uses I and me
    • it may miss feelings and small details
    • it is always false
    • it has no facts

  3. Question 3

    Which is a firsthand account?

    • a book about astronauts by a teacher
    • an astronaut's journal from space
    • a poster about rockets
    • a quiz about planets

  4. Question 4

    What can a secondhand account often give that a firsthand one can't?

    • facts gathered from many sources
    • the writer's diary
    • one person's feelings at the time
    • what the writer saw

  5. Question 5

    A news story uses a police report to describe a fire. What kind of account is the story?

    • a firsthand account
    • a poem
    • a secondhand account
    • a diary

  6. Question 6

    A history book quotes a soldier's letter. The letter is a firsthand account. The book is…

    • a fairy tale
    • a diary
    • a firsthand account
    • a secondhand account

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