EEEEE! It’s a Rat!
A Beginning Reading Lesson
Rationale: This lesson teaches children
about the long vowel correspondence
ee = /E/. In order for
students to become phonemically aware, they have to learn how
to recognize all correspondences, which will also help them,
learn how to recognize the spellings that map word
pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to
recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling
ee. They will
learn this correspondence by learning a representation of a
girl screaming EEEE, showing the sound that EEE
makes when it is pronounced. They will also perform a
letterbox lesson and read a decodable text.
Materials: Graphic image of a scared girl;
Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each
student; letter manipulatives for each child: e, a, d, n, b,
e, f, d, c, h, k, y, s; decodable text: The Bee and the
Flea by Cheryl Ryan and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
1.
Say: By learning different correspondences,
you will learn the map of how to pronounce words. We have
already learned to read short vowel words
like
bed with the short e
sound. Now we are
going to learn about long e and more specifically the sound that two
e’s make together like in feed or beet. When you think
of the sound that
ee makes, I want
you to think of a scared girl saying, “EEEEE, a mouse”!
[show graphic image]. There are many different spellings of
/E/, but today we are going to focus on words that
are spelled with ee.
So remember when you see two e’s together you are going to make the sound
that you would make if you saw a mouse, “EEEEEE”!
2. Say: Now I want you all to get
comfortable with hearing /E/ in
words. Listen to me say a few words that have the long vowel E. When I say
these words listen for me saying, “EEEE like I saw a mouse”.
Here we go, “beep, feed, bee, and sleep”, did you see
how I said /E/ in
all those words? I said, “b/ee/p”, bbbb, eeeeee, pppp.
Now I want you all to raise your hand if you hear me say the
long E sound in a
word, elephant, screech, medic, eel, agree, eat, and
tree. “Great Job, guys”! Notice that every time I use
the long vowel E, I
am pronouncing the name E and when I use other words
that use the short vowel e,
e does not say
it’s name.
3. What if I want to spell the word
feed?
“If I feed the dog, he will stop
barking.”
Feed means to give food to the dog
in the sentence. To spell
feed in letterboxes, first I need
to know how many phonemes I have in the word. To know this, I
need to stretch it out and pronounce it slowly: /f/ee/d. I need 3 boxes. I heard that /f/
just before the /E/ so I’m going to put
an f in the 1st box, e in the second box, but it will
be two e’s because they act as one sound, and d
in the last box. Make sure you stretch your words out
because some letters will act as one sound. For example the
word feed, /f/ee/d. There are four letters, but only
three sounds.
Let’s do a more difficult word like
screech. First stretch the word out, s-c-r-ee-ch. In
this word, there are two sets of letters that each act as one
sound. Ssssss ccccc eeeee chhhh. You see I said the
s sound, the c sound, and the two e’s
together, then lastly I pronounced the ch together
as one sound. For my letterbox I would put the s in the first
box, the c in the second box, the r in the
third box, the ee in the fourth box, and then lastly
the ch in the last box.
4. Say: Now I want you to put some words in
a letterbox. I want to start with a review word first.
Everyone spell end. Now we will move on to our new
correspondence. You’ll start out easy with
bee. A bee
is a bug that flies around and produces honey, “As I was
sitting under the tree, a bee flew by me.” Now I
want you to count how many phonemes are in the word bee.
Say the word bee slowly,
bbbbbb eeeee. What should go in the first box? [Respond
to children’s answers]. The b would go into the
first box. What goes in the second box? Make sure that you say
it slowly and put letters together that act as one sound. Both
e’s would go into the second box because they act as
one sound. I will walk around and check spelling. [Observe
progress.] You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word.
The next word is feed. Listen for the beginning
sound to spell in the first box. Then listen for /E/ and don’t
forget to put letters together that act as one sound.
Now try the words, feed, beet, cheek, tree, and
screech.
5. Say: Now I want you all to read the words that you spelled in
the letterbox lesson. I want you to read the first three words
in unison. Great Job Students! Now I will call on individuals to
read out the rest of the words.
6. Say: I cannot believe how
great you all have done by spelling and reading out words with
the correspondence /E/. Now we are going to read a book called
The Bee and The Flea. This is a story of a bee and a flea.
The flea was not like any other flea. He did not like to do
anything that other flies liked to do. One day the flea was
eating nectar out of a flower, which bees only do and suddenly a
bee caught him and took him to the queen bee. To figure out what
happens when the Queen Bee finds out that the flea was eating
nectar out of their flower, we will have to read the whole
story. Let’s read as a group and take turns reading
The
Bee and The Flea
to find out what happens to the flea. [Children take turns
reading alternate pages each while teacher listens. After they
read the book once, we will read it again so that everyone can
have a chance to read. We will then read it one more time, but
only I will read it and we will discuss plot.]
7. Say: Our lesson is almost over, but I want you all to
complete a worksheet to show me how much you know and understand
the letter E. This worksheet
will show pictures and words that contain the long vowel /E/.
I want you to look at each picture and match the picture with
the word. All the words have the long vowel /e/ in it,
but some have the double e’s that we focused on today.
In order to do well on this worksheet, you will need to sound
out each word and match the word with the picture that describes
each word. When you find the word and the picture that matches,
you need to copy the word underneath the correct picture.
Remember each word will say the sound that you would say if a
scared girl just saw a mouse. I will let you all work on this
worksheet and I will walk around and help whoever needs help.
Resources:
Bradley, Alison. (2004) Excellent E!
Reading Genie:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/guides/bradleybr.html
Assessment worksheet:
http://www.homeeducationresources.com/free/phonics/longWD7.pdf
Ryan, Cheryl. The Bee and the Flea