9-19. read, reads, to read, reading.
[You read X.] = X is a group of words that someone writes. When you see them, you know what these shapes mean and you know the words this person wants you to think about.
[I am reading something that my child wrote.]
9-20. country, countries.
[X is a country.] = X is the group of all places that one government controls.
[This family moved here from another country.]
9-21. soldier, soldiers.
[X is a soldier.] = X is a person who is part of a group of people like this: The government tells this group what to do. The government helps this group learn to make people do what the government wants. The government gives this group things they can use to cause people to die. If people from another country do things that this government does not want, the government can tell this group to do things to them to try to make them stop. If the people inside this other country do not do what the government wants, this group can cause them to die.
[A group of soldiers from another country caused my parents to die.]
9-22. story, stories.
[You tell a story.] = For some time, you say things like this: You say something happened, and then someone did something, and then something happened because of this. These things can be true, or they can be some things you thought about that are not true but that you want to tell someone. People often enjoy hearing someone do this.
[Before my children sleep, they want me to tell them a story.]
When one of my parents was young, he saw many soldiers from another country.
He wrote a story telling what happened to some of these soldiers.
Now other people can __________ to know what happened to them.