"/A/!"
Hit by Hail
Lesson Design: Beginning
Rationale:
This
lesson will help children identify /A/, the phoneme represented by
ai.
Students will learn to recognize /A/ in spoken words by learning a
meaningful representation (shouting in shock "/A/") and the grapheme
ai,
practice finding /A/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /A/ in phonetic
cue reading by distinguishing words with similar vowel sounds.
Materials:
Primary
paper and pencil; letter boxes, letters: a, i, f, l,
t, p, J, e, n, s, r., tongue twister on chart: "The Tailor failed to tail
the frail snail.", Jane and Babe
(Educational
Insights,
1990) for all students; word cards with FAIL, TAIL, PAIL,
JANE, and SNAIL, paper and crayons, assessment worksheet identifying
pictures with /A/ (URL below).
Procedures:
1. Say: In
our language there are times when two letters sound a lot a like, for example
'c' and 'k'. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for--the mouth moves
we make as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move
/A/. We can spell /A/ with letters
ai.
/A/ makes the same sound as if you were yelling out of shock, "/A/!".
2.
Practice with me, /A/, /A/, /A/. [Pantomime blocking something invisible you are
about to get hit with] Notice how you shaped your mouth. When we say /A/, we are
actually saying the letter name A.
3. Let me
show you how to find /A/ in the word
pail.
I'm going to stretch pail
out in
super slow motion and listen for me saying the letter A. Pp-a-a-ail.
Slower: Pp-a-a-a-i-l There it was! I felt my mouth say the letter A.
I can feel the /A / in pail.
4. Let's
try a tongue twister [on chart]. "The Tailor failed to tail the frail snail."
Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch
the /h/ at the beginning of the words. "The T-aaa-i-l-oor f-aaa-i-l-ed to t-aaa-i-l
the f-r-aaa-i-l s-n-aaa-i-l." Try it again, and this time break it off the word:
"The T/A/lor f/A/led to t/A/l the fr/A/l sn/A/l."
5. [Have
students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter ai
to spell
/A/. Let's write the lowercase letters ai. Start just below the fence and
make a curve like you are about to write the letter o. When you get back
to where you started on the fence, draw a straight line down. That's the letter
a, but to make the /A/ sound, we must follow it with the letter i.
Start at the fence again and draw a straight line until you get to the sidewalk,
then put a dot over the top of your line. That is ai. I want to see
everybody's
ai.
After you are done, I will come around and give you a star. Then practice
writing five more.
6. Call on
students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /A/ in pail
or
pal?
fail
or
fall?
Fail
or
fall?
Stan or
stain?
Mall or
mail? Say: Let's see if you can spot
the mouth move /A/ in some words. Put your hand on your head if you hear /A/:
The,
brainy, snail, tailed, the frail, chain.
7. Say:
"Let's look a book called "Jane and Babe". In this book, we hear about a lady,
Jane, who works with a lion named Babe. Put your hand on your head if you hear
/A/" Ask the students to read it individually. Come around and ask children to
say words with ai and draw out the /A/ sound.
Ask children if they can think of other words with /A/. Ask them to think
of object that has the /A/ sound . Then have each student write the name of the
object and draw a picture of their /A/ object. Display their work.
8. Show
TAIL and model how to decide if it is tail
or
tall:
/A/, so this word is
tt-aa-i-l,
tail. You try some: PAIL: pail
or
pal?
FAIL: fail
or
fall?
STAIN: Stan or
stain? MAIL:
mall or
mail?
2-- [air],
3--[fail, tail, pail, Jane, mail], 4--[
stain, brain, chain, snail, frail], and 5--[spent].
9.
For
assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to color the pictures that
contain with
ai.
Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
References:
Bruce
Murray. Emergent Literacy Lesson. "Brush Your Teeth with F".
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html
"Jane and
Babe"
Educational
Insights,
Assessment
worksheet:
http://www.free-phonics-worksheets.com/html/phonics_worksheet_v2-01.html
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