Ehhh? What
Did You Say? /e/
Beginning
Reading
Rationale: In order for children to become skillful readers,
they must have a strong understanding of phonemes. Short vowels
are among the first letter sound correspondences to be taught in
beginning reading. This lesson is designed to help students
recognize e=/e/ in written and spoken words. Students will also
learn to read and spell words with e=/e/ through practice with a
letterbox lesson, and by reading a new book.
Materials:
Letterboxes: set of 3, 4, and 5 for each student and for the
teacher
Letterbox letters for each student and teacher: (e, a, t, n, b,
d, w, r, s, l, t, h, p, s,)
Smartboard
Picture of door opening
Poster board with tongue twister: Ellen the elephant enjoys eggs
every morning in the exciting elevator.
Primary paper
Pencils
Copy of Red Gets Red for each student
Worksheet of pictures for assessment (pictures of two choices,
which one has the e = /e/ sound in it: egg or bacon, bed or
pillow, elephant or gorilla, elf or sleigh).
Procedure:
1. Begin by showing the students the letter e on the SMARTboard. Can anyone tell me
what letter this is? Does anyone know what sound this letter
makes? This letter sounds like a squeaky door. Now let's look at
this picture of an old door opening (show on smart board) and
imagine the sound it makes while opening. Model the sound for
the students while stretching the e = /e/ sound out. Have the
class repeat it.
2. Next, I will show the students the tongue twister on the
SMARTboard. Now, I am going to read this silly sentence and want
you to listen carefully because I want you to repeat it after
me. Tongue
twister: Ellen the elephant enjoys eggs every morning in the
exciting elevator. I will then read the sentence slowly
stretching out the e and opening an imaginary door. Now it's your turn,
read the sentence opening your door. 'Eeeeellen the
Eeeeeelephant Eeeeeenjoys Eeeegs Eeeevery morning in the
Eeeeexciting Eeeelevator.
3. Next, I am going to say some words and I want each of you to
listen for the special /e/ sound in the words. I will read both
words and then call on good listeners who raise their hands to
tell me which word has the creaky door sound in it.
Words:
Bed or Floor
Blue or Red
Worst or Best
Head or Toes
Yellow or Green
Raise your hand if you can tell me a word that has the e=/e/
sound in it. I will repeat the word and we will say it as a
class together.
4. We are now going to use our letterboxes to practice spelling
words with the e sound. Everyone take out their letterboxes and
all the lower case letters. Watch me as I show an example of how
to use our letterboxes. I have placed three boxes on the
SMARTboard, so this means that there are going to be three
sounds in my word. This also means that our mouths are only
going to move three times to say this word. Here is the first
word… bed. Let's see I hear /b/ first, what letter makes that
sound? That's right- B!
So b goes in the
first letterbox. Next I hear the /e/ sound in the middle so the
letter e goes in my
middle letterbox. Last, I hear /d/ at the end so, what letter
makes that sound? d.
Good job!
I want you
to use the letters you have in front of you to spell the
following words. Everyone open his or her boxes to three
squares. The words are ten, web, pen, red (I will say a sentence
with each word and place the word on the SMARTboard for everyone
to check their spellings after giving them sufficient time after
each word to spell). Let's also try a couple of review words:
sat, sand. Next let's try our four letter words: sled, test,
help, dress. Last let's try a big word with five different
sounds, blend. Great job everyone on all of your spellings!
5. Using the overhead, I will spell some of the letters they
previously spelled, and allow them to read them. I will pay
close attention to each student to assess whether or not the
child is able to read each word.
If a child cannot read a word, I will use body-coda
blending to facilitate reading.
For example, "For the word ten, I first would start with
/e/, then add the /t//e/-/n/, and finally add the end of the
word /te/n/- /ten/." Read it with me. Great Job!
6. Next, I will introduce the decodable text: "Red Gets Fed." Have you ever had a
pet that liked to beg to eat and get fed lots and lots? Well in this book,
Red the dog begs everyone in his family for food. Let's read to see if
he gets fed. Have the children break up into groups to read "Red
Gets Fed". The students will take turns reading to each other
while I walk around and listen to them read. I will watch each
child in the room read a page and take notes as they read.
7. Finally, we are going to write a message about Elmer the
elephant, whose favorite color is red. I want you to make up a sentence about why
red is Elmer's favorite color.
Remember (model on overhead), this is how we write our
/e/. They can use inventive spelling to write the words.
Assessment: As I go
around hearing and noting miscues of each student reading, I
will be able to check each child's reading level by anecdotal
notes that I will collaborate throughout the semester to check
reading progress. The
students will be given a worksheet with pictures on it, some
containing the e = /e/ sound in them. The goal will be to circle the picture
that contains this sound. After they have circled the picture
they will write the word of the picture under it to practice
writing the lowercase e. After
they have written the word on paper, they will then spell the
words into their individual letterboxes.
References:
Murray, B.A., and Lesniak, T. (1999) The Letterbox Lesson: A
hands on approach for teaching decoding. The Reading Teacher,
52, 644-650.
Clark, Kathryne. "Can
You Open the Creaky Door"
Cushman, Sheila. Red Gets Fed. Educational Insights: Carson, CA.
1990.