Katherine Johnson Counts the Way
Katherine Johnson loved to count. As a child, she counted steps and dishes. She liked working with numbers.
Katherine was born on August 26, 1918. She grew up in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
She did well in school and went to college when she was just 15. After college, she taught math.
Later, Katherine got a job doing math for a group that studied flight. She worked with other women who did math by hand. Their work helped people build and test planes.
The group became part of NASA, the US space agency. At NASA, Katherine used math to help plan trips into space.
A space trip is not a straight line. A spacecraft can travel in a curved path around Earth. Katherine used numbers and shapes to work out paths like these.
In 1961, she helped plan Alan Shepard's trip into space. Her math helped show where his spacecraft would land.
In 1962, John Glenn was set to fly around Earth. A machine had worked out numbers for his trip. Glenn asked for Katherine to check them by hand.
She checked the numbers carefully. Glenn made his trip and came back safely.
Katherine kept working at NASA for many years. She helped with plans for trips to the Moon, too. She retired in 1986.
Katherine Johnson died in 2020. Her careful work with numbers helped people travel into space.
- flight:
- The act of flying through the air.
- spacecraft:
- A vehicle made to travel in space.
- curved:
- Bent instead of straight.
- land:
- To come down to the ground after flying.
- retired:
- Stopped working after many years at a job.
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- 1What did Katherine like to count as a child?
- 2Where did Katherine grow up?
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About this biography passage for Lower Elementary
“Katherine Johnson Counts the Way” is a biography reading passage about Katherine Johnson and space travel, written for Lower Elementary. It takes about 2 minutes to read (231 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.