Guiding Comprehension

Draw Conclusions • Critical

Look at the different coins on
p. 96. How do different values of coins make your life easier?

Possible responses: Different values of coins allow you to pay the exact price for something; different values of coins make it easier to carry larger amounts of money—for instance, it is much easier to carry a dollar or ten dimes than one hundred pennies.

Vocabulary

• Context Clues

The word interest can have more than one meaning. What are these meanings? Use context clues to find the correct meaning of the word interest as it appears in the third paragraph on p. 97.

Possible meanings include: curiosity about something; something people enjoy doing; the money a bank pays a customer to use his or her money. Meaning in context: the money a bank pays a customer to use his or her money.

then… use the vocabulary strategy instruction on
p. 97.

If… students have difficulty using context clues to define
a multiple-
meaning word,

Context Clues

VOCABULARY STRATEGY

Context Clues

TEACH

Read p. 97 to students. Model using context clues to choose among the multiple meanings of the word interest in the last paragraph of the page.

MODEL I know interest can mean several things: it can mean that somebody is curious about something. In the third paragraph, I read that interest can also mean "what the bank pays you to keep your money over time." This definition fits the meaning of the word interest as it is used in the last paragraph on this page. The word interested in the same paragraph means "wanting to know about."

PRACTICE AND ASSESS

Have students use context clues to find the appropriate meaning of the word save in the second paragraph on p. 97 (to keep). You may also wish to have students scan the entire selection to compile a list of words that have multiple meanings and which must be defined in context.

"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 Direct students' attention to the word bank. Explain that bank can have several meanings, but that in this context (on p. 97) it means a place where people keep their money. Help students understand the various services (checking accounts, financial services, safe deposit boxes, and so on) banks provide their customers. Economics: Costs and Benefits People need to make wise choices about how to spend their money. They need to weigh the cost of something against the benefits of having it. Cost is how much a person pays for something either in money, time, effort, or the like. Benefits are things that help people or are good for them. For example, imagine you had to choose between spending a dollar for twenty balloons or putting a dollar in the bank to collect interest. At first, it may seem that it is better to buy the balloons. The balloons will make you happy right away. But over a period of time, your dollar will be worth more as you earn interest. So, even though you do not have the benefit of spending the money right away, you will have even more money to spend in the future.

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

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