A Day A Day!

Rationale: Students need to learn to both read and spell words that have the long /A/ sound. This lesson introduces students to some of the correspondences that have /A/ sound such as: a_e, ay, and ai.

Materials: Poster Board (w/ Today is a day Jay will play.), Letterbox (each student), Letters: A,E,L,K,S,P,C,G,M,D,Y,H (each student), James and the Good Day., Coloring worksheet, and note cards with words from letter box lesson.

Procedure:

1) Today we are going to learn about the other sound the letter a makes. Does anybody remember the first sound that the letter a makes? That’s right the letter a=/a/. Can anyone raise their hand and tell me some words that sound have the /a/. However there are some times when the letter A says its name /A/. Can everyone say it with me A-A-A-A. Good job. I think you are getting the hang of this.

2) What are some words that you know where you can hear the letter a say it’s name. Write students responses on board. There are a few different ways where the letter a say’s it’s name. The ones that we see the most are a_e=/A/, ay=/A/, and ai=/A/. We do mare going to work more with a_e=/A/.

3) Let’s practice some /A/ sounds by saying this tongue twister. Get out board with tongue twister written on it. Read the tongue twister to the students. How many words have the long /A/ sound? I want you to read it with me, and count with your fingers every time we say a word with an /A/ sound. Read and count them. How many words have the long /A/ sound in them. That’s right there are five words that have the /A/ sound. Lets all read the tongue twister four more times.

4) I believe that you’re getting the hang of this. Lets play a little game. I’m going to say to words. I want you to listen very carefully and raise your hand if you can tell me which word has the /A/ sound in it. Ant or Lake? Lap or Day? Wait or what?

5) Now it’s time to practice spelling a few words with the long /A/ sound. This might be a little tricky at first remember that there are a few different ways to make the /A/ sound. Pass out the letters and the letterboxes for each student. We’re going to start off easy and I’m going to spell words with a_e=/A/. Remember that we only put the sounds we hear in the letterbox. So if we need to use the silent e, we place it outside the letterbox. Let me do one first I’ll use one of the words that we put on the board earlier. “Rake” see where I put the silent e. Lets spell the word: Lake, space, cake, game. You all did an excellent job. Now Lets spell the words: Day, say, play, and hay. Great job! Now lets do some reading. I’m going to hold up a card and we are going to read it. Let me do one first to show you. This is the word /g/ /A/ /m/. Now you try it.

6) Today we are going to read a book about James and the things he did that day. One thing that he did was play with his tug in the bathtub. Do you think that he is going to have a good day? Well we are going to get into our groups and read James and the Good Day.

7) For assessment pass out worksheet with eight coloring pictures on it. Four pictures are things whose name contain the long /A/ sound. Go over pictures with students and tell them to color only the pictures that have the long /A/ sound in their name.

References:

johnsonbr.html. IIII---L-IIII-ke---IIII-ke-and-M-IIII-ke.

James and the Good Day. Phonics Readers, Long Vowels. Educational Insights. 1990.

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