Pebbles King
  February 26, 2001

                                                        Gone Fishing

Rationale:  Words aren’t accessible meanings of units to children, but evidence shows that children are inclined neither to conceive of spoken language as a string of individual words nor to treat words as individual units of meaning.  Early reading instruction begins with the assumption that words are individual units of language.  Many children learn about words through print and as they become aware of these words in print, they begin to notice and isolate words in speech.
Materials:  Colored paper, fish patterns, magnet, flat washers, primary paper and pencil and a dowel.
Procedures:
1.  Introduce the lesson by explaining how words are the basic units
 of meaning.  Present words in a single setting so that the children can
 make progress in phonetic reading skills.
2. Ask the student:  Have you ever been fishing before and didn’t like the particular size fish you caught or either you reeled in something that wasn’t describable?  That’s what we’re going to distinguish about spoken words in print.
3. Now, let’s try to hook some fish using our rods to catch some words for decoding.
4. We can use the primary paper and pencil to practice writing each word after we’ve correctly pronounced each word.
5. If the student gives the incorrect answer to the word then he must throw it back into the pond.  The next student will be given an opportunity to gain extra points by telling the answer to the word he has caught as well as explain why the other student had to throw his fish back into the pond.
6. We will have the student with the most words caught to place his written words on the board to be used as words to give the children ideas as into what their messages will display.
7. For assessment, I will encourage students in decoding the phonetically marked words that may have been difficult.  Ask each student to use the picture on back of the card to give insight.

Reference:  Larios, Patty.  (1997).  #241. Fishing for words game:  Reading/Writing level:  Elementary. http://www.teachers.net/lessons/posts/241.html

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