Aw, a Puppy!
A Beginning Reading Lesson
Rationale:
This lesson teaches children about the vowel correspondence
aw =
/aw/. 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
aw. They will learn a meaningful
representation (someone seeing a puppy and saying aw), they will
spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox
lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the
correspondence
aw = /aw/.
(Children should be able to read regular polysyllabic
words to do this lesson - reading level late first, early second
grade.)
Materials:
Graphic image of a puppy; cover-up critter; whiteboard Elkonin
boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each
student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic
letters for teacher: a, w, s, h, k, j, n, d, l, h, p, r; list of
spelling words on whiteboard to read: saw, hawk,
jaws, sand, lawn, shawl, and
prawn;
decodable text:
Paul and Maggie; assessment worksheet
Procedures:
-Say: In order to become fantastic 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
sat,
and today we are going to learn about the spelling
aw
that is used to say /aw/. When I say /aw/ I think of someone
seeing an adorable puppy and saying aw! [show graphic image].
Now let’s look at the spelling of /aw/ that we will be learning
today. One way to spell /aw/ is to use the letters
a
and
w
next to each other. [Write
aw on
the board.]
-Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /aw/, we need to
listen for it in some words. When I listen for /aw/ in words, I
hear
aw say /aw/ and
I feel my bottom jaw drop down so my mouth is open wide. [Make vocal
gesture for /aw/.] I’ll show you first:
straw. I
heard
aw
say /aw/ and I felt my bottom jaw drop down so my mouth is open
wide
[make a circle motion around open mouth]. There is
aw in
straw.
Now I’m going to see if it’s in stone. Hmm, I didn’t hear
aw
say /aw/ and my bottom jaw didn’t drop down so my mouth was wide
open. Now you try. If you hear /aw/ say, “Aw, a puppy!” If you
don’t hear /aw/ say, “No puppy here.” Is it in flaw, smooth,
yawn, smile, saw, hear? [Have children make a circle motion
around their open mouth when they feel
aw say
/aw/.]
-Say: What if I
want to spell the word
crawl?
“My baby sister just began to crawl.”
Crawl
means dragging your body on the ground to move in this sentence.
To spell
crawl
in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in
the word so I stretch it out and count: /c//r//aw//l/. I need 4
boxes because
aw is
one phoneme. I heard that /aw/ just before the /l/ so I’m going
to put an
aw
in the 3rd box. The word starts with /c/, that’s
easy; I need an
c.
Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going to say it slowly,
/c//r//aw//l/. I think I heard /r/ so I’ll put a
r
right after the
c.
I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when
stretching out the word: /c//r//aw//l/.] The missing one is /l/.
Now I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display
poster with
drawn
on the top and model reading the word.] I’m going to start with
the
aw;
that part says /aw/. Now I’m going to put the beginning letters
with it: d-r-aw, /draw/. Now I’ll put that chunk together with
the last sound, /drawn/. Oh,
drawn,
like “I have drawn a beautiful picture.”
-Say: Now it’s your turn to spell some words in letterboxes.
You’ll start out easy with two boxes for
saw.
Saw means you have seen something in the past, “We saw a
shooting star last night.” What should go in the first box?
[Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box?
Did you remember that
aw is
one phoneme? 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 /aw/ and remember that
aw is
one phoneme so it goes in one box. Here’s the word:
hawk, A
hawk just flew over the park;
hawk.
[Allow children to spell remaining words:
jaws, sand, lawn, shawl, and
prawn.]
-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.]
-Say: You’ve done a fantastic job reading words with our new
spelling for /aw/: aw. Now we are going to read a book called
Paul and Maggie. This story is about a boy named
Paul who loves his cat, Maggie.
Maggie always wakes Paul up in the morning, but one day,
Maggie does not wake Paul up and she is nowhere to be found!
Will Paul find Maggie?
Let’s pair up and take turns reading
Paul and Maggie
to find out if Paul can find his sweet cat! [Students pair up
and take turns reading alternate pages while teacher walks
around the room, monitoring progress. After individual paired
reading, the class rereads
Paul and Maggie
aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the
plot.]
-Say: Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell
/aw/ = aw, I want to see if you can read all by yourself. This
worksheet has some missing words that you need to read and
figure out where they belong.
After reading all of the words in the box, decide which
aw
word fits best in each blank of this story.
Make sure you reread your story to make sure all of your
choices make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual
child progress.]
-Say: While you
are all working on the worksheet, I am going to call you back
one by one to read orally to me.
You can read a passage from
Paul and Maggie.
[Teacher notes errors, accuracy rate and reading
comprehension.]
Resources:
Berger, Amy.
Aye, Aye Captain.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/
Olivera, Nicholas.
Paul and Maggie.
Harcourt. Web. 24 Feb. 2012. <http://www.toolboxpro.org/
Assessment worksheet:
http://www.free-phonics-worksheets.com/html/