Strega Nona

By Tomie dePaola (retold by), Illustrated by Tomie dePaola

Strega Nona has magical powers. She tells Big Anthony not to touch her pasta pot, but he watches to get her magic spell for making unlimited amounts of pasta. While she is away, Big Anthony invites the town for a pasta meal and uses her spell. The problem is that he didn’t listen to the end of the spell to get the pot to stop making pasta. The town is overrun with pasta, and Strega Nona has to fix it.

Teach Points

The lessons below highlight a few CAFE literacy strategies that work especially well with this title. Use them to spark discussion, model skills, and guide your instruction—then build on them as you see new opportunities with your students. Printable versions are included for easy reference.

Comprehension

Recognize and explain cause-and-effect relationships

Why did Big Anthony not see Strega Nona blow three kisses to the pasta pot?
What caused everyone to laugh at Big Anthony?
Why did Big Anthony not see the pasta pouring out of the house?
What made the pasta overflow the house?

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Comprehension

Retell; include sequence of main events

Explain that our fingers help us remember the events of the story.
Model using the five-finger retell to recall the events of the story.
What was Big Anthony’s problem?
How did his problem get solved?

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Fluency

Use punctuation to enhance phrasing and prosody

Enlarge page 8 of the text. Point out all the different punctuation.
Tell students that the punctuation helps us as we read.
Have them listen as you model reading without pausing at commas or giving emphasis for exclamation points.
Ask, “Did I use the punctuation as I read?”
Explain that the commas help us pause and the exclamation points help show emotion.
Show them how to look at the sentence and use their finger to scoop the phrase to the comma.
Reread the sentence, scooping the phrase.
Continue modeling the scooping throughout the page.

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Expand Vocabulary

Tune in to interesting words

Tell students that you will be looking for interesting words to add to the class Word Collector.
As you read the text, point out how interesting the words are on each page.
Have the students share some as you read. For example, rushed, grabbed, pouring, bubbling, protect, barricade, overflowed.
Share how these words make the story more exciting and interesting.

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Expand Vocabulary

Use pictures, illustrations, and diagrams

Say to students, “When we read and come to a word we don’t know the meaning of, we need a strategy.”
Read “‘Get mattresses, tables, doors—anything to make a barricade.’” Then say, “I don’t know what a barricade is. What should I do?
“First, I’ll look at the picture. What are they doing with the tables, doors, and things?
“Then I think about why they are doing that. The mayor said they must protect their town from the pasta.
“I can infer that barricade means to block something from harming us."
“We wrote this word on our Word Collector. Now we can put a picture next to it to help us remember what it means.”

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Expand Vocabulary

Ask someone to define the word for you

Say to the students, “We have learned some things to do when we come to words we don’t know. Can someone tell me what I should do?
“Sometimes we have tried to figure it out with the picture and the rest of the sentence, but we still don’t know what it means.
“I may need to ask someone near me. I want to be respectful about interrupting them.
“When asking I might say, ‘Excuse me, do you know the meaning of this word?’ The person I asked may say, ‘Yes, it is _______, and it means “_______,”’ or they may say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. You may want to ask someone else.’
“You should always thank the person you asked. ‘Thank you for your help.’”

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The teaching points for this lesson were written by Maureen Raines.

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