Reagan Ellenburg
Beginning Reader
Elmer the Elephant
Reagan Ellenburg
Beginning Reader
Rationale:
In
order for children to become skillful readers, they must have a strong
understanding of phonemes. Short vowels are among the first letter
sound
correspondences to be taught in beginning reading. This lesson is
designed to help
students recognize e=/e/ in written and spoken words. Students
will also learn to read and spell words with e=/e/ through
practice with
a letterbox lesson, and by reading a new book.
Materials:
Letterboxes:
set of 3, 4, and 5 for each student and for the teacher
Letterbox letters for each student and teacher: (e, a, t, n, b, d, w,
r, s, l,
t, h, p, s,)
Overhead projector
Picture of door opening
Poster with tongue twister: Elmer the elephant enjoys eggs every
morning
in the excellent elevator.
Primary paper
Pencils
Copy
of Red Gets Red for each student
Worksheet of pictures for assessment (pictures of two choices, which
one has
the e = /e/ sound in it: egg or bacon, bed or pillow,
elephant or gorilla, elf or sleigh).
Procedure:
1. Begin by
showing the students the letter e on the
overhead projector. Can anyone tell me what letter this is? Does
anyone
know what sound this letter makes? Very good! This letter sounds like a
squeaky
door. Now let’s look at this picture of an old door opening (place
on overhead)
and imagine the sound it makes while opening. Model the sound for the
students
while stretching the e = /e/ sound out. Have the class repeat it after
me.
2.
Next, I will
show the students the tongue twister on the projector. Now, I am going
to read
this silly sentence and want you to listen carefully because I want you
to
repeat it after me. I will then read
the sentence
stretching out the e and opening an imaginary door. Now
it’s your
turn, read the sentence opening your door. Tongue twister: Elmer
the
elephant enjoys eggs every morning in the excellent elevator.
3.
Next, I am going to say some words and I want each of you to listen for
the
special e sound in the words. I will read both words and
then call
on good listeners who raise their hands to tell me which word has the
creaky
door sound in it.
Words:
Bed or Floor
Blue or Red
Worst or Best
Head or Toes
Raise
your hand if you can tell me a word that has the e=/e/ sound in
it. I
will repeat the word and we will say it as a class together.
4.
We are now going to use our letterboxes to practice spelling words with
the e
sound. Everyone take out their letterboxes and all the lower case
letters.
Watch me as I show an example of how to use our letterboxes. I have
placed
three boxes on the overhead, so this means that there are going to be
three
sounds in my word. This also means that our mouths are only going to
move three
times to say this word. Here is the first word… bed.
Let's see I hear /e/ first, what letter makes that sound? e. So
e goes in the middle letterbox. Next I hear the /b/ sound
at the beginning so the letter b goes in my first
letterbox.
Last, I hear /d/ at the
end so,
what letter makes that sound? d. Good job!
I want you to use the letters you have in front of you to spell the
following
words. Everyone open his or her boxes to three squares. The words are
ten,
web, pen, red (I will say a sentence with each word and place the
word on
the overhead for everyone to check their spellings after giving them
sufficient time after each word to spell). Let’s also try a
couple of review words: sat, sand. Next let’s try our four
letter words:
sled, test, help, dress. Last let’s try a big word with five
different
sounds, blend. Great job everyone on all of your spellings!
5. Using the
overhead, I will
spell some of the letters they previously spelled, and allow them to
read them.
I will pay close attention to each student to assess whether or not the
child
is able to read each word. If a child cannot read a word, I will
use
body-coda blending to facilitate reading. For example, “For the
word
ten, I first would start with /e/, then add the /t//e/-/n/, and
finally add
the end of the word /te/n/- /ten/.” Read it with me. Great Job!
6. Next, I will
introduce the decodable text: “Red
Gets Fed.” Have you ever had a pet that liked to beg to eat and
get fed
lots and lots? Well in this book, Red the dog begs everyone in
his family
for food. Let's read to see if he gets fed. Have the
children break
up into groups to read “Red Gets Fed”. The students will take turns
reading to
each other while I walk around and listen to them read. I will watch
each child
in the room read a page and take notes as they read.
7. Finally, we are
going to
write a message about Elmer the elephant, whose favorite color is red. I want you to make up a sentence about why
red is Elmer’s favorite color. Remember (model on overhead), this
is how
we write our /e/. They can use inventive spelling to write the words.
Assessment: As I
go around
hearing and noting miscues of each student reading, I will be able to
check
each child’s reading level by anecdotal notes that I will collaborate
throughout the semester to check reading progress. The students
will be
given a worksheet with pictures on it, some containing the e = /e/
sound in
them. The goal will be to circle the picture that contains this
sound.
After they have circled the picture they will write the word of the
picture
under it to practice writing the lowercase e. After they
have
written the word on paper, they will then spell the words into their
individual
letterboxes.
References:
Murray, B.A., and
Lesniak, T.
(1999) The Letterbox Lesson: A hands on approach for teaching
decoding. The
Clark, Kathryne.
“Can You Open
the Creaky Door” http://www.auburn.edu/%7Emurraba/invent/clarkbr.html
Cushman, Sheila. Red Gets Fed. Educational Insights: Carson,
CA. 1990.