The Old Man says, “Eh”
A
Beginning Reading Lesson
Rationale: This
lesson will help children understand and identify the short
vowel correspondence e = /e/. It is important to give students
explicit instruction when learning a new vowel correspondence.
Students must learn to recognize, spell, and read words
containing the spelling /e/. It will also help students
associate the phoneme /u/ with the letter U. This lesson will
help students remember what sound /u/ makes by using something
to help their memory. We will use a meaningful correspondence
(old man saying, “Eh, what’d you say?”). They will spell and
read words with /e/ in this lesson during a letterbox lesson and
through a decodable book that concentrates on e = /e/. This
lesson will help with phoneme awareness.
Materials:
Picture of old man saying, “Eh, what’d you say?”, cover-up,
whiteboard, letterboxes, letterbox letters for students, list of
short /e/ words on a poster, the book “Pen Pals”, and the
assessment.
Words: ed, ten,
pet, men, stem, rest, lend, trend
Letters:
e,d,t,n,p,m,s,l,r,
Procedures:
1.We need to
become expert readers and how we do that is by learning our
special code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have
already learned our short vowel /a/ like in tap, and today we
are going to learn our short vowel /e/. When I say /e/ I think
of an old man who can’t hear very good saying, “Eh, what’d you
say?” [show meaningful representation]. Write the letter e
on the board so the students know what letter we are discussing
today. That is how we write the letter e.
2.Now we are going to listen for our sound /e/ in these words.
When I listen for /e/ in words, I hear the sound of the old man
who can’t hear. When I say words with /e/ in them my mouth opens
and the sound is made in the back of my throat. I’ll show you
first egg. I heard
our old man e and I
felt the sound come from the back of my throat. There is a short
e in
egg. Now let’s see
if it’s in the word book.
Well, I didn’t hear our old man e and I didn’t feel the sound in my throat. Now
you try. If you hear our old man /e/ say, “Eh, what’d you say?”
if you don’t hear it say, “That’s not it.” Is it in leg, rain,
jam, mess, get?’’ [Have students put their hand up to their ear
when they hear short e.]
3.What if I want to spell the word spend? “What will
happen if I spend too much money?” To spell
spend in
letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in
the word so I sound it out while I count. /s//p//e//n//d/. I
need five letterboxes. I heard the /e/ right after the /p/ so I
will put the /e/ in the third box. The word starts with /s/ so I
will put that in the first box. Then I heard /p/ that’s what I
will put in the second box. I already have my third box filled.
Now, it gets a little tricky. So, I am going to say it again
really slow. /s//p//e//n//d/. I think I heard /n/ so I will put
that next. After that I heard /d/. Model how to read a hard
word. Write word in letterboxes on the board before modeling.
Then, once you have modeled, read the word in a sentence. I will
model the word
chest. First, I am going to break the word into smaller
sounds. I hear the sound /ch/ like choo-choo so that must
be ch. Now I hear
/e/ like when an old man can’t hear. And lastly, I hear the
sound /st/. I will read this sentence: The boy had a bird on his
chest.
4.Now you are going to get to spell some words in your
letterboxes. You will start out easy with two boxes. Spell the
word
Ed. Ed like a
persons name. “Ed likes to go fishing.” What should go in the
first box? What goes in the second box? I’ll walk around the
room and check your spelling. Now we will need three boxes for
our next word. Listen to all the sounds to help you spell our
next word. The word is neck.
“My neck is hurting today.” Spell these words: went, rest, spent, ten,
red.
5.Now, you get to read the words you have spelled. [The students
will read the words aloud together.] Then, call on individual
students to read one word aloud on the list until everyone has
gotten a turn.
6.You all have done such a wonderful job reading words with our
new spelling /e/. Now we are going to read a book called “Pen
Pals.” This book is about a boy named Ben. Ben is inside his pen
and cannot get out. Ben is yelling for his pet to come help him
out. Let’s pair up and take turns reading “Pen Pals” to find out
if Ben gets out of his pen. [Teacher walks around room
monitoring students while they take turns reading to their
partner. After partner reading the class will read aloud the
book together. During reading we will stop to discuss what is
going on.]
7.Before we finish I want to see how you can solve a reading
problem. We are going to do a worksheet and you are to circle
the correct spelling of short /e/. You will circle the word that
corresponds with the picture in that box. First try reading all
of the words. Make sure you hear the old man
e in the word that
you circle.
Resources:
Worksheet for assessment.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/alphabet/mcwords/shorte/
“Pen Pals”
(Education Insights, 1990).
Holcomb,
Joanna, Ella Elephant Says “Ehhh?”
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/holcombbr.htm