What does rainfall mean?
Word: Rainfall
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Rainfall means the amount of water that comes down from the clouds onto a place over a certain time, such as a day, a month or a year.
How do you spell rainfall?
Syllables: rain - fall
Tricky part: Children often stop after one l at the end, as they would in careful or hopeful. This word keeps both.
Watch out for: rainfal, rainefall
Memory tip: Picture two drops of water sliding down the window side by side: they are the two l's that close the word.
Rainfall in a sentence
Example 1: Cherrapunji in Meghalaya is famous for its very heavy rainfall.
Example 2: The farmers were happy because this year's rainfall was better than last year's.
Example 3: Our class drew a bar graph of the rainfall in each month.
Fun Fact
Rainfall is measured with a gauge, a container that collects water so that its depth can be read in millimetres. Mawsynram, a village close to Cherrapunji, is often listed as one of the wettest places on Earth.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Makeup
Choose the correctly spelt compound word:
a) snowflaik
b) thunderstrom
c) earthquak
d) rainfall
Show answer
d) rainfall. Thunderstorm ends in storm, snowflake ends in ake, and earthquake ends with an e.
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to form a word:
r_inf_ll
a) e, o
b) a, o
c) e, a
d) a, a
Show answer
d) a, a. Both gaps take an a, the same vowel you see in train and ball.
Word Cookie
Find the extra letter in the word:
rainnfall
a) f
b) a
c) n
d) r
Show answer
c) n. Cross out the second n and the word reads correctly.
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
iraafnll
a) rainfall
b) fireball
c) finally
d) fairly
Show answer
a) rainfall. Count the vowels first: two a's and one i, which matches only one option.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A town with low rainfall is likely to have ____.
a) dry fields and few rivers
b) thick forests and swamps
c) floods every single week
d) snow all through the year
Show answer
a) dry fields and few rivers
2. Weather experts measure rainfall partly to help farmers decide ____.
a) how much to charge for milk
b) which tractor to buy
c) what colour to paint their sheds
d) when to sow their seeds
Show answer
d) when to sow their seeds
