Show the cover of the book, before reading, and have students predict the genre of the story. Read the first few pages and then ask students to assess their predictions.

• Were they accurate or do they need to adjust?
• Read the first three pages of the story and ask students whom the main characters in the story are.
• Explain how stories have a problem and solution. Model your thinking about the problem and have students share ideas. Predict how the problem will be rectified in the end and self-assess the predictions upon completion of the read-aloud.
• Explain to students what the setting of the story means and model for them when the setting changes using a think aloud.
• Upon completion of the read-aloud, have students answer questions about the literary elements of the story: who, where, what, when, problem, and solution.

Use the text as a read aloud, modeling stopping to think about what you are reading. Model aloud using a think-aloud and stop and reread if you can’t remember.

Stop reading and have students retell what is happening in the story using the words first, next, then, last, and finally.

Stop and ask questions to prompt students to think about the story they are listening to. For example:

• Who are the main characters in the story? 
• What is the problem in the story? 
• How do the characters solve the problem? 
• What happened first, second, etc. in the story? 
• How did the story end?

Offer students many opportunities to retell throughout the day whether it is reading or another classroom activity or about things outside the classroom.

Using sentences from the story, model reading with good dialogue, expression, and feeling. For instance, look at the following dialogue as examples:

P. 4-Ma’s been workin’ so hard,” Maybelle said. “Let’s bring her in some extra. ‘Less we gather them spuds off Kenney’s field, they’ll go to rot, sure thing, and that’s just plain wasteful. Ain’t that right, Eddie?”

P. 7-“She’s gonna slice ‘em thin as fingernails and fry ‘em up crusty brown with lots of salt sparklin’.”

P. 22-“Next year after harvest,” he said, “you kids come on back and sack up as many rocks as you like. Any taters you happen to glean in the process, they’re yours to keep. You tell your ma I said that, you hear?”

For example:

P. 8—We left the road and stole into Kenney’s field, creepin’ over the clawed-up earth, our hands feelin’ for night spuds.

P. 10— That car whizzed right passed us.

P. 17—These ain’t potatoes, Maybelle. They’re stones! We been harvestin’ stones!

Explain to and model for students how to ask for a definition of a word. Teach them to ask one, two, or three of the following questions:

• What is the word? 
• What is the word like? 
• What are some examples of this word being used in a sentence?

After gathering up the answer(s), students should go back to the text and do one or all of the following three things to assess their level of understanding:

• Go back to the text and substitute the definition in place of the word.
• Read the selection again, using the definition.
• Ask, does the definition of the word make sense in the sentence?

Model this behavior for the students using a word or words from the story. Possible words to choose from are:

• P. 22 – harvest 
• P. 3 – schemin’ 
• P. 7 – rattle-bang