Directions: Underline the words in the story as you find them, unscramble them and write them in the boxes below. Thomas Alva Edison was called Alva, or Al by his family. He was a very curious child. He was always asking questions. The teacher told someone she thought there was something wrong with Alva. He told his mother and they took him out of the school. He only went to school for 3 months in his whole life. Afterwards , he was taught at home. He wanted to experiment. When he was 16 he went to work for the telegraph office sending messages. When he was 22 years old he went to New York.The owners gave him a job. He improved their machine so much the company paid him $40,000 for his invention. He started the American Telegraph Works in New Jersey. He built a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was here with his employees he made many of his inventions. He and his team worked to make a light bulb which would burn for a long time without burning out. They tried 1,500 materials and nothing worked well. Finally he tried a new material in the filament that burned nearly 200 hours. After he had made the light bulb, he worked to make a power system so people could use the bulb. Thomas Edison was probably the world's greatest inventor. He had a patent on 1,093 inventions. In addition to the electric light, he also invented the phonograph , a camera to take motion pictures, a cement mixer, the automatic telegraph, and he improved Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.