Growth Journey Open Response

This passage outlines the life cycle of a praying mantis from egg to adult. It explains the stages of development, including hatching, the nymph stage, molting, and adulthood. Students learn how mantises grow by shedding their exoskeletons and how adults spend most of their lives hunting and reproducing.

Life-cycle passages strengthen students’ ability to follow chronological information and identify stages in a process. Readers build vocabulary related to growth and development while improving comprehension through sequencing activities. These texts also help students recognize organizational patterns often found in science-related nonfiction.