Nadia Comaneci

Lesson Procedure:

Print the reading comprehension passage and questions (see below).

Students should read the passage silently, then answer the questions. Teachers may also use the text as part of a classroom lesson plan.

Lesson Excerpt:

At the 1976 Olympic Games, a fourteen-year-old gymnast named Nadia Comaneci made history. She became the first to score a perfect “10” in a gymnastics event. Because of this amazing performance, Nadia Comaneci helped make gymnastics a popular sport all over the world.

Nadia was born in Romania in 1961. She began her gymnastics training when she was only six years old and a gymnastics coach named Bela Karolyi saw her doing cartwheels in the school playground. She became one of Karolyi’s first students. In 1971, when Nadia was nine years old, she went to her first international competition where she helped her team win the gold medal. She competed throughout Europe for the next few years with great success.

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