Write
· What kind of car will she buy?
.........................................................................
· What do you think will happen to them in the future?
Answer: Use your imagination!
1. What’s her son’s name? .............................
2. Where is Lividia from?
3. What language do they speak?
4. How did they get to America?
5. What kind of dog attacked them?
6. What did they do that weekend?
Lividia was new to America. She came to the USA speaking only her native language. She had left everything behind to start a new life. She only brought her 6-year-old son with her. He was all she had in the world.
They found an apartment in Springfield. They were there for only two months when a neighbor’s dog jumped over the fence. The dog ran toward Lividia’s son. Lividia put her body in between the dog and her son. The dog stopped when Lividia started screaming at it. She was going to punch it in the nose. The dog turned around and ran off.
Shaking, Lividia took her son upstairs. They stayed in the apartment all weekend. Then Lividia found another apartment, close to the school that her son was going to attend.
She and her son walked everywhere. One day her son started coughing badly. He had caught a serious cold. All the walking was making him even sicker. Lividia tried to find a solution.
Lividia knew that she had to buy a car, so she called the local car dealer. She talked to a salesman who spoke her language. She told him that she wanted to buy a car if he could come over to pick her up. The salesman said he would be right over.
Teacher Notes
The aim of this kind of reading exercise is to stimulate children’s imagination. Just imagine for a minute that the comprehension questions were the following:
1. How old is her son?
2. Where do they live?
3. What happened after two months?
4. Whom did Lividia call?
5. and so on…
I dare you to answer them and reflect on how you feel when doing so.
These kinds of questions are incredibly BORING!!!
So try something new, something students don’t expect. At first they’ll ask ‘Teacher, what’s the correct answer, I can’t find it in the text?’
That’s right. Try to make them understand that they are free to answer whatever they think could be right. After they have all finished, you could have a meaningful discussion about why they chose these particular answers and turn the reading lesson into some conversation practice.
I hope you all enjoy this approach to make reading more interesting.
Credits: Original free story available at http://www.rong-chang.com/eslread/index.htm. The version in this worksheet has been slightly modified for teaching purposes.
Remember: Any answer is possible!
1. What’s her son’s name? Pedro
2. Where is Lividia from? a small town in Mexico
3. What language do they speak? Spanish
4. How did they get to America? by boat
5. What kind of dog attacked them? a German Shepherd named Killer
6. What did they do that weekend? They watched TV and played with toys
7. What kind of car will she buy? a red Toyota Yaris
8. What do you think will happen to them in the future? Lividia will find a job as a cashier in a supermarket. She’ll try to save as much money as possible to give her son a good education. She’ll meet a man and get married. They’ll buy a small house and go to Disneyland.
Nashea2