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BEFORE READING
Prereading Strategies
OBJECTIVES
Target Skill Recognize sequence to improve comprehension.
Target Skill Use sequence to summarize.
GENRE STUDY
Realistic Fiction
Because of Winn-Dixie is realistic fiction. Explain that in realistic fiction, although the story is fictional, the characters are believable and the events that happen are things that could happen in real life.
PREVIEW AND PREDICT
Have students preview the story title and illustrations and discuss who the characters might be and what might happen in the story. Encourage students to use lesson vocabulary words as they talk about what they expect to read.
Strategy Response Log
Ask Questions Have students write two questions they have about the story in their strategy response logs. Students will answer their questions in the Strategy Response Log activity on p. 27.
Choral Reading, 39a
Writing
Grammar
Fluency
Declarative and Interrogative Sentences, 39e
Think and Practice, 39i
Writer's Craft: Voice/Tone, 39g
Spelling
DAY 2
Fluency and Language Arts
SET PURPOSE
With students, discuss the picture on p. 23 of the story. Students can tell where they think the dog is and what he is doing. Have them tell what they hope to find out as they read the story.
Remind students to look for the sequence of events as they read.
Audio CDAudioText
ELL
Access Content Help students understand the meaning of library, a false cognate in Spanish of librería, which means "bookstore."
Consider having students read the selection summary in English or in students' home languages. See the Multilingual Summaries in the ELL Teaching Guide, pp. 5–7.
Because of Winn-Dixie

"Because of Winn-Dixie"
by Kate DiCamillo

Student Edition
Unit 1, pp. 22–33

This Snapshot is realistic fiction. It is about characters and events that are like people and events in real life.

Opal Buloni and her father, a preacher, have recently moved to a small town in Florida. Opal's mother has died, and Opal misses her. Soon after they arrive, Opal rescues a big, scruffy dog. She names him Winn-Dixie, after the grocery store where she found him. She convinces her father to let her keep him. She is lonesome.
Winn-Dixie goes everywhere with Opal. He even goes to the Herman W. Block Memorial Library. Opal spends many hours inside reading. She teaches Winn-Dixie to stand on his hind legs and watch her through the window. She gets to know Miss Franny Block, the tiny, old librarian.
One day, while Opal is selecting a book, Miss Franny screams. Opal finds her sitting on the floor behind her desk. She has just seen a bear at the window! Opal tells her that she is positive that it was Winn-Dixie, her dog. Miss Franny breaks a rule and lets him come inside.
Then she begins to tell a story. She recalls Florida when it was wild and woolly. She says she doesn't want to appear prideful, but her daddy was a very rich man. When she was about Opal's age, he gave her her own library. One day she was reading when she saw a shadow. She didn't look up until she noticed a strong, peculiar smell. Then she saw a huge bear right in front of her. She was scared but decided to fight. She threw a big book at the bear, and it went away. But it took the book, she says. And for years she was teased that a bear was somewhere reading a book. Miss Franny stops and says that this was long ago. Most of her friends are gone now.
Miss Franny looks at Winn-Dixie. He sits up and shows her his teeth. She thinks he is smiling at her. Opal says that's one of his talents. She says that maybe she and Miss Franny and Winn-Dixie can all be friends. Miss Franny says that would be grand.
Just then Amanda Wilkinson walks in. She asks for a difficult book to read. She brags that she is an advanced reader. Then she asks why a dog is in the library. Miss Franny looks at Opal and winks. Opal knows that she has made a friend.

Because of Winn-Dixie. Copyright © 2000 by Kate DeCamillo. Reprinted by permission of Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.

Copyright © Pearson Education.

 
   
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Students should set their own purposes for reading. Students
may read something other than the main selection. For titles related to the lesson focus or topic, see TR3.
Students can use the question on p. 23 of the student edition to set a purpose for reading. Students will use a time line to record the sequence of main events as they read. Students may use the web to set their purposes for reading.
If you began a web on p. 20a, students can look for details to add to the web as their purpose
for reading. Have them add to their webs as they read.
Independent Activities
ELL
Advanced
Strategic Intervention
On-Level
Unit Inquiry Project, 17
Cross-Curricular Centers, 18j–18k
Strategy Response Log, 22, 27, 35
Self-Selected Reading, TR38–39
Independent Activities
Place English language learners in the groups that correspond to their reading abilities in English.
Group Time