Beginning Reading Lesson
By: Noelle Jones
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Rationale:
This lesson is geared to help children recognize the vowel correspondence o= /o/.
In order for children to read, they must be able to recognize the spellings that
map word pronunciations. The students will learn to identify /o/ in spoken words
by learning a meaningful and authentic representation (opening mouth and
sticking out tongue slightly, like you would at the doctor’s office and say “ahh”),
they will spell and read words with this spelling in a letterbox lesson, and
then read a decodable and rhyming book that targets the short o=/o/
correspondence.
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Materials:
Elkonin/ letterboxes; graphic image of a man yawning or at the doctor’s office
making the sound “ahhh”; cover-up stick; letter tile manipulatives for each
child or board letters for the teacher: b, c, d, d, g, k, l, m, o, r, s, t; list
of spelling words on a small poster or note cards to read: odd(2), cob(3),
trod(4), stock(4), rock(3), smog(4); text to be read is
Frog and Toad
are Friends by Arnold Lobel.
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Procedures:
1. Say: Our written language is a
secret code we can access. The tricky part is learning what the letters stand
for and the mouth moves we make as we pronounce each word. We’ve already learned
to read the short a vowel sound, like “wahhh” when a baby cries, and today we
will learn about short o, such as when we are at the doctor’s office and having
to stick our tongue out and say “ahhhh.” When I say /o/ I think of going to the
doctor and having him look at my throat while I stick out my tongue and say “ahhh”
[show image]. Now we’ll look at how we use /o/ in spelling words that we will
learn today. We spell the o=/o/ sound with the letter
o.
2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of the o=/o/ sound, we need to try to
listen for it in some words. When I listen for
o in words, I don’t hear it say its
name, but I listen to see if I am making the sound like we talked about earlier
from the doctor’s office, “ahhh.” I feel my mouth open, and if I place my hand
under my chin, then I feel it going down as far as it can. While saying the
short o vowel sound, I can trace a big letter
o around my lips as I’m saying the
sound/word to signify the short o
sound. Here, I’ll show you first: crop.
As I said the word, I heard the “ahhh” sound and traced the letter
o around my lips as I said the sound
in the word. I now know that there is definitely a short
o in the word
crop. Now let’s see if it’s in the
word broke. Listen and help me see if
we here o=/o/ in “bbb-rrr-ooo-kkk.” I didn’t feel my chin moving down as much in
broke, and I wasn’t able to make a
big O shape around my lips this time. If you hear /o/ say, “Ahh that’s it!” If
you don’t hear /o/, say “no that’s not it.” Do you hear it in snooze, slow,
stop, zone, hop, step, pain? (Have children make the large O circle motion
around their lips when they hear o=/o/.)
3. (MODEL w/ letterboxes) Let me show you how to find /o/ in the word
rock. “I threw a rock in the pond.”
Write the letter o on your marker
board first. To spell rock in my
letterbox, I first need to know how many phonemes are in the word, so I stretch
it out and count: /r/ /o/ /ck/. I need 3 boxes. I heard the “ahh” sound just
before the ck so I’m going to place
an o on the second box. I can hear
that the word starts with an r, so
I’m going to place an r in the first
box. I also heard /k/, and I know we spell
rock with a
ck at the end, so I’ll put
ck in the last box together.
4. Now I’d like you to spell some of the words in the letterboxes. First, you
will spell out an easy word with two boxes for
odd. Something that is odd is out of the ordinary or strange, “it is odd
for Ms. Jones to be late because she is always punctual.” What should go in the
first box? (respond to answers). The second box? I’ll check your spelling as I
walk around the room (observe). We’ll use 3 boxes for the next word:
cob. “I ate corn on the cob with my lunch;
cob.” [Follow this same procedure for
the remaining words: trod(4), stock(4),
rock(3), smog(4)].
5. Say: “Now I’m going to let you read the words that you have spelled, but
first I’ll show you how I would read a difficult word.” [display
prong on your poster or whiteboard
and model reading the word.] After you have modeled this, have the students read
the word in unison. Then, call on individual students to read one word. Then
have the class read all of the words we’ve spelled. Afterwards, call on students
to read one word on the list until all have read one word.
6. Say: “I’m so proud of you all. Each of you has done a wonderful job with
reading our new words with our spelling for /o/ as “ahhh.” Next we are going to
read a book called Frog and Toad are
Friends by Arnold Lobel. This is a story about two friends who enjoy
swimming. Frog and Toad agreed: it was a perfect day for a swim. And Frog was
kind enough not to look at Toad in his bathing suit, per Toad's request. But
when the swimming was over, a crowd had gathered to see Toad in his
funny-looking suit, and neither Frog nor Toad could make them leave.
7. Well that was a fun story! Before we finish our lesson on the short o
vowel, I want to see how well you can complete our spelling and reading
worksheet. On this worksheet, we have a few words that are missing. I’d like you
to see if you can figure out which words to write in the blanks. I’ll help you
with the first few, and then I want you to complete the rest of them on your
own. We’ll first read through all of the word choices together, and then start
placing the right words in the missing blanks. Before you turn in your
worksheet, be sure to check your work.
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Resources:
Bonnie Terry, LD Specialist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad94VriujtE&feature=related
Sarah Dennis-Shaw, “Teaching Short-Vowel Discrimination Using Dr. Seuss Rhymes.”
Read Write Think. Web. 27 February
2012. <http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/teaching-short-vowel-discrimination-113.html?tab=4#session1
>
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