How Five Numbers Help a Letter Travel
When you mail a letter, how does it find the right home? The secret is in the address.
Every letter has lines of writing on the front. The top line has the person’s name. The next line tells the street and house number. The bottom line names the city and the state. At the very end of that line, you will see five special numbers. This is the ZIP Code.
ZIP stands for Zone Improvement Plan. Long ago, mail was sorted only by hand. As more people mailed letters, the old post office needed a faster way to sort them all.
On July 1, 1963, the post office started using five-digit ZIP Codes. Later, in 1971, the United States Postal Service became the official agency we know today. But the helpful five numbers stayed the same!
Each digit in a ZIP Code has a special job. The first number picks a big area of the country, like a group of states. The next two numbers pick a smaller central mail center. The last two numbers tell the exact local post office or town.
Today, giant sorting machines read these five numbers very fast. A camera scans the numbers. Then, the machine drops the envelope into the right bin.
- address:
- The written words and numbers on an envelope that show where it needs to go.
- sorted:
- Separated or arranged into groups.
- digit:
- Any single number from 0 through 9.
- scans:
- Looks at or reads information very quickly, often with a camera or machine.
- envelope:
- A flat paper cover used for sending a letter in the mail.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1What is the main topic of this passage?
- 2Where on a letter can you find the ZIP Code?
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About this explanatory article passage for Lower Elementary
“How Five Numbers Help a Letter Travel” is a explanatory article reading passage about ZIP Codes and Mail Sorting, written for Lower Elementary. It takes about 2 minutes to read (245 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.