A NEW TABLE

Home-Grown Story Created By

Brooke Smith

Theme: Housing

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in support of the

Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy Pilot Program

Indianapolis, IN

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Level F

Using This Story

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• These stories were created as open educational resources to use with adult English language learners who have limited-literacy skills.
• We encourage using the stories first without words, to introduce and develop students’ oral language before showing them the text.
• Comic Sans font is used in the stories because it closely resembles handwriting.
• The story is meant to be a resource, not a stand-alone curriculum.
• The Yes/No and Wh- question slides are not meant to be shown to the students.

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@2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY NC 4.0 license by the Pathway to Literacy Program, under the direction of the Immigrant Welcome Center, in Indianapolis, IN. All images in this story, unless otherwise attributed, are from Public Domain or free stock photo images sources, such as Unsplash, Pikist, Pixabay, Pexels, FreePik, Pics4Learning, and AI tools.

A New Table

(no text)

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F

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The Badu family is quite large.

They have five children–two

daughters and 3 sons. All of

their children still live at home. They want to eat meals together, but they have a problem. Their big kitchen table broke, and now the one they are using is too small for the size of their family. They decide it’s time to buy a new table for their dining room.

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They go to the international

furniture store in their city. The

prices are sometimes reasonable

there. They are searching for a

bigger table to put in the dining

room. They find a bigger, white one on sale for ninety-nine dollars.

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That’s a decent price! They

decide to buy it. It needs to

be assembled at home. They

bring it to their house in the box.

Mr. Badu gets out his tool box.

He uses his drill and other tools to put the table together.

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Now the family can eat

meals together all in one place!

They don’t have to sit in separate

places. They fit at the table. They

like their big new dining room table.

They are happy to eat together once again.

The End

1. How many children are in the Badu family?
2. What is the problem?
3. Where do they go?
4. What do they buy?
5. How much does it cost?
6. Who puts the table together?
7. What do they do next?
8. How do they feel?

Wh- Questions

Sample Test Questions

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1. What is the story mostly about?

1. looking for a new house
2. buying furniture for the family
3. learning how to cook

2. Why do they need a new table?

1. They want a different color.
2. The old table is too small and broken.
3. They are moving to a new city.

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3. The word assembled means _____.

1. to buy something on sale
2. to put parts together
3. to drive to the store

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4. What does the picture show?

1. a grocery list
2. a dinner schedule
3. a store map

Read the chart then answer questions 4, 5, and 6.

BADU FAMILY DINNER SCHEDULE

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5. The schedule shows the _____ the family eats together.

1. prices

b. times

c. addresses

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6. What time does the family eat on Monday and Tuesday?

• 7:30 am
• 9:00 pm
• 6:00 pm