Fiction Readers: The Human Calculator

The Human Calculator is a humorous and realistic fiction story about a girl, Ashley, frustrated that Madison seems to be doing so much better than her in math. Ashley started to suspect that when Madison hurt her head, they implanted a calculator in her head. Turns out, she has been getting help from her genius brother! The story is narrated from Ashley’s perspective with illustrations and illustrative text.

The Human Calculator is a simple narrative story. Illustrations match the text. Draw students’ attention to the visual features including the thought illustrations, symbols, layout, and design. Opportunities arise to discuss illustrations and text as thoughts.

Readers develop vocabulary such as numbers as words (four) and verbs (confused). Focus on suffixes and base words (puzzled) and abbreviations (Ms.). Opportunities arise to discuss similes, apostrophes within contractions (I’m), capital letters at the beginning of sentences and names (Madison), quotation marks, exclamation marks, question marks, and commas.

This title is from the Fiction Readers series from Teacher Created Materials. Stimulate the imagination and promote creative thinking through real-world themes captured in entertaining stories.