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BEFORE READING
Prereading Strategies
OBJECTIVES
Target Skill
Identify the literary elements of setting and character.
Target Skill
Describe story structure.
GENRE STUDY
Realistic Fiction
My Rows and Piles of Coins is an example of realistic fiction. As students learned in Week 1, a realistic story is "made up" but is based on things that could actually happen.
PREVIEW AND PREDICT
Have students preview the selection title and illustrations and discuss the characters and events they think this selection will cover. Encourage students to use lesson vocabulary as they talk about what they expect to learn.
Strategy Response Log
Graphic Organizer Distribute copies of story sequence charts (Graphic Organizer 8) to students. Instruct students to fill in the graphic organizer as they read. (Explain that they may need to expand the chart based on the number of events they record.)
SET PURPOSE
Explain that My Rows and Piles of Coins is set in the East African country of Tanzania. Show students Tanzania's location on a map. Then 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 pay attention to the literary elements of character and setting and to identify the text's structure as 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 to be aware of and flexibly use the during-reading strategies they have learned:
  • link prior knowledge to new information;
  • summarize text they have read so far;
  • ask clarifying questions;
  • answer questions they or others pose;
  • check their predictions and either refine them or make new predictions;
  • recognize the text structure the author is using, and use that knowledge to make predictions and increase comprehension;
  • visualize what the author is describing;
  • monitor their comprehension and use fix-up strategies.
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.
Audio CD AudioText
My Rows and Piles of Coins

"My Rows and Piles of Coins"
by Tololwa M. Mollel

Student Edition
Unit 1, pp. 120–134

Realistic fiction is about things that could really happen. Has anything like what happens to Saruni ever happened to you?

I help Yeyo, my mother, on market day. Today she gave me five coins and said, "Saruni, you have been a big help."
I fingered the coins and looked for something to buy. I saw many snacks and toys, and then I saw bicycles. I excitedly ran to them. One was red and blue. I could help Yeyo more if I had that bike. I could run errands if I had a bike. Then I heard a gruff voice shout, "What are you looking at, boy? Get away from my bikes!"
Just then I decided to save all my money until I could buy that bike. I twisted my coins in a cloth. At home, I unwrapped the coins and took out the rest of my money. I arranged all the coins in stacks and counted them. Every week I earned more coins, and every week I stacked and counted them.
At the same time my father, Murete, was teaching me to ride his bicycle. Every night he held it steady as I got on. At first, it wobbled and I could not ride straight. I was learning to ride, but I came dangerously close to crashing when I tried to ride with extra weight on the bike. To carry goods to market on the bike, I had to be able to ride with a load on the back.
Soon I had many coins. Before long I felt like a rich man who could afford a bike. I took my coins to the bike man and pointed to the red and blue bike. He laughed meanly, "You do not have enough coins to buy that bike." Then he laughed at me. I was deeply saddened.
Later Yeyo asked what troubled me. She was surprised that I wanted a bike so I could help her. She said that someday I would own a bike. The next day, Murete came home on an orange motorbike. Murete said that he did not need his bike and would sell it to me. I ran and got my coins. Murete gave me the bike and Yeyo the coins. Then Yeyo handed me the coins. "Am I to keep the coins and the bike?" I asked.
Yeyo and Murete nodded yes. "You are a great help to us!"
Now I put bundles of goods on the bike and walk it to the market. And I think about when I can buy a cart for my bike to pull.

From My Rows and Piles of Coins by Tololwa M. Mollel. Text copyright © 1999 by Tololwa M. Mollel. Reprinted by permission of Clarion Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Pearson Education.

 
   
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ELL
Activate Prior Knowledge Have students preview the pictures in My Rows and Piles of Coins. Then ask students to discuss why it is important for family members to help each other.
Consider having students read the selection summary in English or in students' home languages. See the Multilingual Summaries in the ELL Teaching Guide, pp. 33–35.