ABSTRACT
Ricardo's teacher was having a family meeting tonight from to p.m. Ricardo's mom, Patricia, always looked forward to these meetings, which gave her time to have dinner with her children and still get them to bed at a reasonable hour after the meeting. Best of all, the teacher encouraged her to bring Ricardo and his younger sister, Marisa, with her. When they arrived in the rst-grade classroom, the desks had been moved to the side and adult-sized folding chairs had been placed in a semicircle. In front of the chairs was a large rug area. Ms. Sandoval greeted everyone and then encouraged the children to sit on the rug and the adults to sit on the chairs, grouped by language. She used a big book in English to demonstrate how to do a read-aloud, beginning by looking at the cover and title and making predictions about what the story would be about. Then she read and showed the pictures to the children on the rug, making sure to stop and point out important points but not stop so often they would lose the story line.
