Rationale:  It is very important that children are able to identify individual sounds in words in
order to read and write.  Children need to feel successful and confident in their reading ability
in order to read and spell words.   This lesson is designed to help the children be successful in
reading and identifying phonemes and sounds in words.  This lesson is designed to help students
learn to recognize and use the phoneme /a/. This lesson will teach or review the phoneme /a/ by
students completing an exercise, repeating a tongue twister, and reading a book all related to the
phoneme /a/.

Materials:  Brown construction paper cut into apple pie slices, Poster board with a pie pan on
it, magic markers to write the following words onto the apple pie slices: rat, tap, cat, clap, hen,
rug, apple, cone, lamp, gum. Have velcro pieces on the apple pie pan and the back of the apples
pie slices, dry erase marker and dry erase board.

Procedures:
1.  Explain to the children that words are composed of a variety of sounds and that some words
may even share the same sound.  We must be able to identify the sounds in words to learn to
read and write.
2.  Tell the class, "The sound that we are going to learn today is the short a=/a/  sound, such as
apple and ant." Hold up a picture of an apple. "Let's all say /a/ together." Write the words apple
and ant on the board and have the students read them together orally.
3.  Have the students read and repeat the following tongue twister. Explain to the students to
listen for the /a/ sound.  "Adam and Andy asked if they could have an apple and a peanut butter
and jam sandwich for their after school snack."
4.  I will have some words on the apple slices and I want you to tell me if they have the short /a/
sound in them.   The apples will be off the poster of the apple pie and they will get moved to the
pie to bake if they have the short /a/ sound in them. I will point to a word and you will repeat the
word after me.  If the word has the /a/ sound in it then I want you to raise your hand, but if it
doesnât have the /a/ sound, I want you to remain quiet and put your hands in your lap.
5.  Tell the children, "We are going to play the game to see if we get to bake our apple pie.ä
Put all the words in front of the poster. I will point to a word and
allow the children to repeat it.  If it has the /a/ sound then they will raise their hand and place
the apple pie word slice on the apple pie poster, however if it does not have the /a/ sound, then
make an ugly face.
6.  Now let's try a tongue twister. "Andy has an apple in his lunch sack." Everybody say it three
times together.  Now say it again , and this time stretch the /a/ at the beginning of the words.
"Aaandy has aaan aaapple in his lunch sack."  Try it again, and this time break it off the word,
"/a/ ndy has /a/ n /a/ pple in his lunch sack."  Good job.
7.  Read a book with the /a/ sound (Pat's Jam).
8.  For assessment, have students raise their hands each time they hear
the /a/ sound while the story is being read.

Reference:
     Eldredge,J.Lloyd.  Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms.  Brigham
Young University. Prentice Hall,Mew Jersey (1995). Pg.61.
     Pat's Jam.  Educational Insights. Dominguez Hills,CA. c  1990.

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