/A/ There Fonzie
A Beginning
Reading Lesson
Rationale: This lesson
teaches children about the long vowel correspondence
a_e = /A/. In order to be able to
read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word
pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read
words containing the spelling a_e.
They will learn a meaningful representation (Fonzie’s greeting), they will spell
and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a
decodable book that focuses on the correspondence
a_e = /A/.
Materials: cover-up
critter (popsicle stick with eyes); whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for
modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for
each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: a, g, e, c, p, r, k,
l, t, s, t, p; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: age, pal,
cape, rake, late, sat, skate, stage, past, place; decodable text: The Race for
Cake and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
1. Say: In order to become expert
readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have
already learned to read short vowel words with
a, like
cat, and today we are going to learn
about long A and the silent e signal
that is used to make A say its name, /A/. When I say /A/ I think of Fanzie’s
greeting. Let’s look at the spelling of /A/ that we’ll learn today. One way to
spell /A/ is with the letter a and a
signal e at the end of the word to
tell me to say A’s name. [Write a_e on the board.]
This blank line here means there is a consonant after
a, and at the end of the word there
is a little silent e signal.
2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /A/, we need to listen for it in
some words. When I listen for /A/ in words, I hear
a say its name /A/ and my mouth opens
nice and wide like this. [Make vocal gesture for /A/.] I’ll show you first:
age. I heard
a say its name and I felt my mouth
make a little a. There is a long A in
age. Now I’m going to see if it’s in
pan. Hmm, I didn’t hear a say its
name a. Now you try. If you hear /A/
give me a thumbs up. If you don’t hear /A/ give me a thumbs down. Is it in page,
can, pats, lace, kite, cake?
3. What if I want to spell the word place?
“Place the pencil down on your desk.”
Place means, to put something down in this sentence. To spell
place in letterboxes, first I need to
know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count:
/p/l/a/c/e I need 4 boxes. I heard that /A/ just before the /c/e so I’m going to
put an a in the 4th box
and the silent e signal outside the
last box. The word starts with /p/, that’s easy; I need a
p. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m
going to say it slowly, /p/l/a/c/e. I think I heard /l/ so I’ll put a
l right after the
p. I have one empty box now. [Point
to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /p/l/a/c/e. The missing one is
/c/. Now I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display the word stage on
the smartboard or poster]. I’m going to start with the a_e; that part says /A/.
Now I’m going to put the beginning letters with it: s-t-a_e, /stA/. Now I’ll put
that chunk together with the last sound, /stA-g/. Oh,
stage, like “I did a dance on the
stage.”
4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start
out easy with two boxes for
age.
As in, “What is the age of that dog?” What should go in the first box? [Respond
to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? What about silent
e, did you remember to put it outside
the boxes? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe
progress.] You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word.
Listen for the beginning sound to spell in the first box. Then listen for /A/
and don’t forget to put the signal silent e at the end, outside the boxes.
Here’s the word: cape, Superman wore his cape; cape. [Allow children to
spell remaining words: rake, late, skate, stage, place].
5. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words
you’ve spelled. [Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on
individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]
6. Say: You’ve done an excellent job and reading words with our new spelling for
/A/: a_e. Now we are going to read a book called The Race for Cake. This is a
story about Ben and Jess the night they went swimming in the lake. Ben and Jess
race for a cake that their mom made when they got done swimming. Let’s pair up
and take turns reading The Race for Cake to find out who wins the race.
[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 The Race for Cake aloud together, and stops between page turns to
discuss the plot.]
7. Say: Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /A/ = a_e, I
want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have
words with /a/ and /A/ sounds. Your job is to look at the words and color the
boxes of words that make the /a/ sound gray and the boxes of the words with the
/A/ sound blue. Make sure to sound out each word slowly so that you are
accurately coloring the picture. Answer the question on the bottom: what were
Ann and Abe looking for?
Resources:
Book: Murray, G.
(2006) The Race for Cake. Reading Genie:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/bookindex.html
Lesson Resource:
Murray, G. Oh, I Didn’t Know. CTRD 3710 Blackboard.
Assessment Worksheet:
http://www.free-phonics-worksheets.com/html/phonics_worksheet_v1-36.html