Oh My!

Beginning Reading

Traci Leech

Rationale: A key component to children's success in reading is phoneme awareness. In order to become phonemically aware children need to understand and be familiar with the various sounds that make up written words. Vowel sounds are the most important phonemes children can learn because they can be found in every written and spoken word.  Without the knowledge of vowel sounds, written words cannot be properly decoded.  This lesson will focus on the vowel correspondence o_e=/E/. The lesson will develop the student’s awareness of o_e =/O/, by giving them instruction and practice on how to form the long o mouth move, as well as, practice reading decodable text containing the o_e correspondence. The students will receive instruction in the decoding the long o mouth move in words, as well as, practice spelling the words themselves.

 Procedures:  
1. Introduce the lesson by explaining that we use letters to write down words, and that these letters represent different sounds.  In order to become good readers, we need to learn how to match the letters to their sounds.  I know everyone remembers how the short o mouth move is like when you go to the dentist and they make you open you mouth wide and say /o/.  Lets practice that together, just to make sure everyone remembers. (the whole class together says /o/) Very good!  So when we see words like on, the letter o says /o/, because it is a short o mouth move.  Now that we all know the short o vowel, today we are going to learn how to make the long o mouth move.   Have you ever heard anyone say "Oh my!" when they are very surprised? That is what the long o sound makes.  Today, we are going to learn that the letters o_e (the blank is for a consonant) make the /O/ mouth move. 

2. "As you get to know what the o_ e mouth move create, you will be able to read and spell many words.  Lets say O's name all together….. O, O, O, O, O, O.  Great! Well we're going to see if this sound can be heard when we see the letter o in a word, followed by a consonant, and then the letter e.  Let’s try this word together…. joke.  Let’s make the mouth moves together…. /j/, /O/, /k/. Very good, does everyone hear the o saying its name?"

3. Now I am going to read you this fun tongue twister, "Nope, there is no hope she is going to choke on the smoke."  Now let's read it together, but this time every time you hear a word with the /O/ mouth move, I want you to say "Oh My" and make a very surprised face.  "Nope, (Oh my) there is no hope (Oh my) she is going to choke (Oh my) on the smoke (Oh my)."  Good job!   Can anyone tell me a word they heard with the /O/ mouth move in it?  Very good.  Let's practice recognizing the /O/ mouth move in some spoken words.  Ask the students the following questions and call on them to answer.  Do you hear /O/ in coke or juice, nope or yes, line or slope, zone or sing?

 4.   Ask the students to take out primary paper and a pencil. "Most of you already know how to write the letters o and e. Please write five o's and e's on your paper to represent the /O/ sound."  The teacher can also model while students are writing. Walk around and observe everyone's letters.

 5. Each child will now receive an Elkonin letterbox as well as the appropriate letter tiles. "Now we will practice using our knowledge of the /O/ sound to spell words.  This is how I would spell the word "tone."  First I am going to unfold three of my boxes because "tone" has three mouth moves, /t/ /O/ /n/. Tone does have four letters, but the e on the end is silent and makes the o say its name. I am going to start with the first mouth move I make in made. t-t-tone.  I hear /t/.  I will place the letter t in the first letterbox. The next mouth move I make is /O/ like Oh My!  I am going to place the letter o in the second letterbox, because it is the second mouth move I make. To finish I need to find the last mouth move.  Ton-n-ne.  I make the /n/ mouth move, which means I will place the letter n in the last letterbox.

 6. All of you have your own letterboxes and the letters, b, o, n, e, m, p, k, r, c, l, s.  I want you to try to spell some words the same way that I just did.  We will first open our letterboxes to only three boxes meaning that each word we spell contains three mouth moves.  I will ask the children to spell bone, hot, mope, and poke.  We will continue on in this manner spelling 4 phoneme words such as: broke, close, and slope.  Lastly, I will write each word, one at a time on the board (bone, mope, poke, broke, close, and slope) and call on students individually to read them out loud to the group.

7. Now, I want everyone to read a new book with your reading buddies. Every time you recognize an "o_e" word I want you to point it out to your buddy.  Distribute class copies of Bo and the Rose.   When we are done we will talk about the story.
Book talk: Rose has a pet goat named Bo.  Rose ties up her goat so he won't get away.  But Bo chews through the rope and he runs away. Will Rose ever get him back? You will have to read the book to see if Rose ever finds her goat.

8. When everyone is finished reading.  The class will go back to their desk and I will ask for volunteers to tell me some words they recognized in the book that contain o_e.  As I write the words on the board, the children will use the same hand writing paper, where they practiced writing the letters, to write down the words I write on the board.

Assessment: The teacher will hand out a worksheet with pictures on it.  The students will say the name of what each picture represents out loud as a class.  Individually the students will be instructed to color the pictures that contain the /O/ mouth move in the name.  For an individual assessment I will ask each student to read two or three pseudo words independently, containing the o_ e correspondence, such as: chope, throme, noke, shope, and fose.

Reference: Lindsay Dick. Spring 2004. A- Okay!

http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/dickbr.html

(1990) Bo and Rose. Phonics Readers Long Vowels. Educational Insights

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