“Ahhh!” Screams the Boy on the
Rollercoaster
Beginning Reading
By
Anna Day
Rationale: As a beginning reader, it is
important for students to learn the
correspondences between sounds and letters
in order to decode words. Short vowels can
be difficult for student to learn, so it
is important for students to receive
explicit instruction and get plenty of
practice working with short vowels. In
this lesson students will learn to
recognize, spell, and read words that
contain the correspondence a
= /a/.
Materials: graphic image (boy
riding a rollercoaster), tongue tickler
written out on chart paper (Splat the
cat tried to trap a fat rat.), Elkonin
boxes, letter manipulatives (a, d, b, g,
c, n, h, m, s, k, t), list of spelling
words written on a poster or whiteboard
(add,
bag, cat, ham, mask,
hand, stack, and smash), Nat
the Cat, pencils
Procedure:
1.
Say: In order to become expert
readers we need to learn the code that
tells us how to pronounce words. All the
letters in the alphabet make different
sounds as we move our mouths a certain
way. Today we are going to learn about the
letter a
and the short sounds it makes, which is /a/.
When I say /a/,
I think of someone screaming on a
rollercoaster, “Ahhhh!”. Have you ever
been on a ride that makes you scream /a/?
(show graphic image)
2. Have the students read a
tongue tickler to practice the
correspondence a =
/a/.
Say:
We’re going to use this tongue tickler
to practice /a/.
When
I say /a/,
my mouth is open and my tongue stays on
the bottom of my mouth. (Show the tongue
tickler chart to the students.) I want
you to listen to me first, “Splat the
cat tried to trap a fat rat”. Do
you think you can repeat the tongue
tickler if I say it again? (repeat with
students two times) Do you hear the /a/
sound? I hear /a/
in the word splat,
what other words have /a/
in them (cat, trap, fat, rat)? We are
going to say the tongue tickler again,
but this time we are going to stretch
out the /a/ sound. “Splaaaat the
caaaat tried to traaaap a faaaat
raaaat.”
3. The students will need
letterboxes and letter manipulatives. Say:
Now we are going to practice spelling
words with the /a/
sound in them. If I want to spelling the
word “mask”, how would I spell it? First I
need to know how many phonemes (letter
sounds) I hear in the word so I stretch it
out and count: /m//a//s//k/.
There are 4 so I will need 4 boxes. I
heard /a/
right after the /m/,
so I am going to put a
in the 2nd box (Go through
other sounds in the word “mask” and model
how to place them in the appropriate box.
If you are unsure how to teach a letterbox
lesson click
here.) Now that I have a
letter in each box, I am going to take the
letters off the boxes and put them
together so I can read the word. I’m going
to sound It out slowly and then blend it
all together, m-a-s-k, mask!
4. Say:
Now I’m going to have you spell some words
in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with
two boxes for “add”.
What should go in the first box? What goes
in the second box? I’ll check your
spelling while I walk around the room.
Lets try a word that you will need three
boxes for. Listen carefully for each sound
in the word. The word is “bag”.
(Have children also spell the words: cat,
ham, mask, hand, stack, and smash)
5. Say:
Now I am going to let you read the words
you spelled out in the boxes. (Have the
students read all the words together as a
class. Afterwards, call on individual
students to read one word on the list
until everyone has had a turn to read a
word.)
6. Say:
You’ve done a great job reading words with
a
= /a/.
Now we are going to read a book called Nate
the Cat. This story is about a fat
black cat named Nat. Nat is a happy cat,
especially when his belly if full. One day
he finishes all the milk in his bowl, but
he is unhappy because he is still hungry.
Nat goes looking for some more to eat. Do
you ever think he will find more food and
have a full belly? Lets read to find out
what happens. (Have all the students pair
up to read the book. Walk around the room
and monitor the student’s progress. After
everyone finishes reading, read through
the book as a class. Discuss the plot of
the story as you read the book as a
class.)
Assessment:
I have the students come up to me
individual and read a short list of words
that that will contain /a/ in them. Some
of the words will be real words, but I
will also have at least two pseudo words.
As they read the words I will take notes
so that I can record what students
understand and which ones still need help.
Resources:
A’s are A-a-ama-a-azing! By
Meg Hall
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/hallmbr.htm
AAAAAAHH! You Scared Me! By
Hannah Jackson
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/jacksonhbr.htm
Nat the Cat by Cindy Garrett
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/teacherbooks.html