How Sound Works
Close your eyes and listen. What do you hear? Maybe a bird is singing outside. Maybe a fan is humming in the room. All of these things are sounds. Sound is a kind of energy that we can hear with our ears.
Sound starts with something moving back and forth very fast. This movement is called a vibration. If you touch a guitar string after you pluck it, you can feel it wiggle. That wiggle is a vibration. This vibration pushes the air and makes sound waves. These waves are invisible. They move through the air in all directions. They look like ripples moving across a pond after you drop a stone in the water.
Sound waves need something to travel through so they can reach your ears. Most of the time, sound moves through the air. But sound can also move through water or solid things like a wooden door. Sound actually travels fastest through solid things! This is because the tiny parts inside a solid are packed very close together. This makes it easy for the vibrations to pass along quickly.
- Vibration:
- A quick movement back and forth.
- Sound Wave:
- Invisible ripples of energy that travel through the air, water, or solids.
- Volume:
- How loud or quiet a sound is.
- Pitch:
- How high or low a sound is.
- Solid:
- Something firm and stable in shape, like wood or metal.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1What is sound?
- 2What do we call the fast back and forth movement that starts a sound?
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About this explanatory article passage for 2nd Grade
“How Sound Works” is a explanatory article reading passage about Sound, written for 2nd Grade. It takes about 2 minutes to read (296 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.