Babies Say Waaa!!
Beginning Reading
Rationale: This lesson is
designed to teach young children about the short vowel
correspondence a =
/a/. Children need to make connections to the sound of each
letter to become successful readers. In this lesson children
will learn the short a sound and participate in a lesson for the
students to spell using the short /a/.
They will learn a
meaningful representation (baby crying says w/a/), they will
spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox
lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the
correspondence a=
/a/.
Materials:
Pencils
Primary Paper
Chart Paper with tongue tickler printed
Letter boxes
Letter tiles (a,b,c,d,f,g,h,n,o,r,t,w)
Book: A Cat Nap
Worksheet
Puzzle
Procedures:
1. Say: Our goal is become great readers and in order to be able
to do that we need to learn our letters and the sounds those
letters make. Today we are going to talk about the short a. Have
you ever heard a baby crying? What sounds do they make? When
babies cry the sound you hear in /a/. That is what you hear. We
call the short a, our baby cry a. (Show motions, rub your eyes
and make the /a/ sound, also show picture of the cry baby “a”. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/phonpics.html)
everyone make the /a/ sound. So when you hear that sound in a
word you know that it is an “a”.
2. Say: I have a
tongue twister on the chart paper we are going to say with our
sound in it. I’m going to say it first and you all listen to all
the /a/ sounds that you hear. “The angry alligator asked Adam
for an apple”. Could everyone hear the /a/ sound it that tongue
twister? Now let’s
say it all together “The angry alligator asked Adam for an
apple.” Very good job now this time let’s say it again
stretching out our /a/ sound and make our motion (rubbing eyes)
when you hear the /a/ sound. “The /a/ngry /a/ligator /a/sked
/a/dam for /a/n /a/pple.”
3. (Detail on how to teach letter box lesson are found on this
website
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/letbox.html).
Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes.
You’ll start out easy with two boxes for
at.,
“We do work at our desk” What should go in the first box?
[Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box?
I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe
progress.] Let’s try another one but this time you will need
three boxes. Listen for the beginning sound to spell in the
first box. Then listen for the /a/ sound in the word. Here’s the
word:
bat, I got a new baseball bat. [Allow children
to spell remaining words cat, bag, had, grab, fact, and splash].
5. Say: Once you have finished we are going to read the words
that you all have just spelled. [Have children read words in all
together. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on
the list until everyone has had a turn.] You need to have a list
of the words plus a new word. List of words for students to
read: cat, bag, had, grab, fact, splash, bat, blast.
6. Say: You did a wonderful job on reading those words, and now
we are going to read a book called A Cat Nap. This is a story
about a cat named Tab. Tab is a very tired cat. So, after Tab
eats his dinner he decides to take a nap in someone’s sports
bag. You’ll have to read to find out what happens while Tab is
taking his nap Let’s pair up and take turns reading
A Cat
Nap and let’s discover what happens to Tab as he takes
his cat nap. [Children pair up and take turns reading
alternate pages each while teacher walks around the room
monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class
rereads A Cat nap aloud
together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]
7. Say: While you pair read I will call up a student one at a
time to listen to you read. Teacher can assess student while
listening to reading noting miscues.
8. For an activity for centers put the short a puzzle for
children to explore and use.
http://www.havefunteaching.com/fun-activities/learning-activity-centers/short-vowel-a-puzzle.pdf
Resources:
Murray, B.A., & Lesniak, T. (1999). The Letterbox Lesson: A
hands-on approach for teaching decoding. The Reading Teacher,
52, 644-650
Young, Emily. (2007). “Aaaaaa!!! You Scared Me!”
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/youngbr.html.
Reading Genie. “Phoneme Pictures for the Short Vowels”.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/phonpics.html.
Assessment worksheet:
http://www.havefunteaching.com/fun-activities/learning-activity-centers/short-vowel-a-puzzle.pdf