Holes
Stanley and Zero are prisoners in a work camp for teenage offenders. Stanley was sent there by mistake. They work very hard all day in the sun. People think Zero can't talk and is a bit stupid. Zero asks Stanley to teach him how to read and write.
1 Read the text and answer the question.
Do you think Stanley is a good teacher?
Stanley is patient, he tries to explain things and he notices when Zero hasn’t understood questions. He gets Zero to write the letters.
On the other hand, he doesn’t give examples of how capitals are used. And he tries to give a lot of information at the same time.
Zero’s A wasn't bad, just a little big. Stanley told him he needed to write smaller, or else they’d run out of paper real quick. Zero printed it smaller.
‘Actually, there are two ways to write each letter,’ Stanley said, as he realized this was going to be even harder than he thought. ‘That's a capital A. But usually you'll see a small a. You only have capitals at the beginning of a word, and only if it's the start of a sentence, or if it’s a proper noun, like a name.’
Zero nodded as if he understood, but Stanley knew he had made very little sense.
He printed a lowercase a, and Zero copied it.
‘So there are fifty-two,’ said Zero.
Stanley didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Instead of twenty-six letters. There are really fifty-two.’ Stanley looked at him, surprised. ‘I guess that's right. How’d you figure that out?’ he asked.
Zero said nothing.
‘Did you add?’
Zero said nothing.
‘Did you multiply?’
‘That's just how many there are,’ said Zero. Stanley raised and lowered one shoulder. He didn't even know how Zero knew there were twenty-six in the first place. Did he count them as he recited them?
He had Zero write a few more upper- and lowercase A’s, and then he moved on to a capital B. This was going to take a long time, he realized.
‘You can teach me ten letters a day,’ suggested Zero. ‘Five capitals and ve smalls. After five days I’ll know them all. Except on the last day I’ll have to do twelve. Six capitals and six smalls.’
Again Stanley stared at him, amazed that he was able to figure all that out.
2 ‘Zero’ is a nickname. Why do you think peopl call him 'Zero'?
3 Why does Zero nod to show he understands when he doesn’t?
4 Zero doesn’t say very much. Why do you think this is?
5 What does Stanley realise about Zero and numbers as he teaches him to write the letters?
6 SPEAKING Why do you think Zero can’t read? If he learns to read how will this help him?