Prereading Strategies

	Distinguish a realistic story from a fantasy.
	Monitor reading for comprehension.

GENRE STUDY

Nonfiction

If You Made a Million is an example of nonfiction. Tell students that nonfiction explains something that could actually happen in real life and also gives facts and information.

PREVIEW AND PREDICT

Tell students to preview the selection title. Have them discuss the topic they think this selection will cover. Encourage students to use lesson vocabulary as they talk about what they expect to learn.

Activate Prior Knowledge
Have students describe what they already know about the various denominations of bills and coins
used in U.S. currency.

SET PURPOSE

Read the first page of the selection aloud to students. Have them consider their preview discussion and tell what they hope to find out as they read.

Remind students to read to discover the elements of a realistic story and to pause occasionally to make sure they understand what they read.

STRATEGY RECALL

Students have now used these before-reading strategies:

preview the selection to be aware of its genre, features, and possible content;
activate prior knowledge about that content and what to expect of that genre;
make predictions;
set a purpose for reading.

Remind students that, as they read, they should monitor their own comprehension. If they realize something does not make sense, they can regain their comprehension by using fix-up strategies they have learned, such as:

use phonics and word structure to decode new words;
use context clues or a dictionary to figure out meanings of new words;
adjust their reading rate—slow down for difficult text, speed up for easy or familiar text, or skim and scan just for specific information;
reread parts of the text;
read on (continue to read for clarification);
use text features such as headings, subheadings, charts, illustrations, and so on as visual aids to comprehension;
make a graphic organizer or a semantic organizer to aid comprehension;
use reference sources, such as an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, or synonym finder;
use another person, such as a teacher, a peer, a librarian, or an outside expert, as a resource.

After reading, students will use these strategies:

summarize or retell the text;
answer questions they or others pose;
reflect to make new information become part of their prior knowledge.

AudioText

"If You Made a Million"
by David M. Schwartz

Student Edition
Unit 1, pp. 90–109

Nonfiction text explains something about real life. What do you think you may learn about from this Selection Snapshot?

Have you ever earned a penny, a nickel, or a dime? What are these coins worth? A penny is worth one cent. Five pennies is equal to a nickel. A dime has the same value as two nickels or ten pennies.
Suppose someone gave you 25 cents. They might give you a quarter, which is equal to five nickels, or two dimes and one nickel, or three nickels and one dime, or even 25 pennies.
If you earned a dollar, you would have an amount equal to four quarters, or 10 dimes, or 20 nickels, or 100 pennies. You could buy bubbles with your dollar, or you could put it in the bank. The bank will pay you interest for letting it use your money. The longer your money stays in the bank, the more interest it earns. After twenty years, your dollar plus interest would equal about $2.70.
You could take five one-dollar bills and trade them in for one five-dollar bill. Money works that way. Every large bill is equal to bills of a smaller amount. The biggest bill is a hundred-dollar bill. Suppose you wanted to buy something that cost a lot, like a big, expensive elephant. That elephant might cost a thousand dollars. You could pay for it with ten hundred-dollar bills or 100,000 pennies.
But do you want to carry so much money around? Instead you could write a check for $1,000. The seller puts the check in his bank. His bank gets $1,000 of your money from your bank and adds it to the seller's money. That's how checks work.
Now think about how you could buy something bigger than an elephant, like a house. Do you have enough money for a house? If not, you could ask a bank to lend you some. You could pay back a little every month. You would also pay interest to the bank for letting you use its money.
You'll need a job to pay back your loan. Try to find something you like to do. Maybe you would like to train ogres. You could make a lot of money doing that. You might even make a million dollars. Now that's big money. A million dollars in one-dollar bills would weigh over a ton. (That's 2,000 pounds.) Maybe you want to take a check. As you can see, dealing with money means making choices.

If You Made a Million by David M. Schwartz, 1989. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.



	Close
	Build Background Have students preview the pictures of coins and bills in If You Made a Million. Help students understand the different denominations of U.S. currency. Consider having students read the selection summary in English or in students' home languages. See the Multilingual Summaries in the ELL Teaching Guide, pp. 26–28.

"If You Made a Million" by David M. Schwartz

"If You Made a Million"
by David M. Schwartz