Rationale:
To learn and spell words, children need to understand that letters stand for phonemes so that spellings map out the phoneme sequence in spoken words. By teaching the short i phoneme, students will learn the specific sound that goes with this specific letter. After this lesson, a child should be able to recognize the phoneme i in a spoken or written text.

Materials:
Primary paper and pencil; chart with "The big pig licked the icky sticky kitten.", class set of cards with i on one side and ? on the other, drawing paper and crayons; Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit; picture page with illustrations of pig, kitten, mittens, sit, hit.

Procedures:
1. Introduce the lesson by explaining that writing is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what the letters stand for÷the mouth moves when we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /i/.
2. Now can you hear the /i/ in icky?". Point around the room at different things that have the short i in them, write words on the board: kit, mitt, inch, sitting (point at a child and ask what he/she is doing), Mississippi (just as a fun word). Extend the /i/ sound in each word so the children can hear it.
3. Now let's do something really fun! I am going to try and trick you with a tongue twister (on chart). Everyone say it together. "The big pig licked the icky sticky kitten." Now say it again and this time lets stretch the /i/ in every word. "The biiiiig piiiig liiiicked the iiicky, stiiicky kiiiitten". Good job!
4. Have students take put primary paper and pencil. We will use the letter i to spell /i/. Let's practice writing it. Start at the dotted line and make a straight line down (model). "Ok now let's not forget to dot our i's". Have students practice more while you walk around the room". After a few minutes do another model in front of the class.
5. Call on students to answer: Do you hear /i/ in his or he? Trick or track? In or out? Swim or run? Pass out /i/ cards to each student. Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /i/ in some words. Show me i if you hear /i/ and show me the question mark if you don't. (Give words one by one). The, big, pig, licked, the, icky, sticky, kitten.
6. Read Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit and talk about the story. Read it again, and have the students touch their ears when they hear words with /i/. List their words on the board. Then have each student draw a pig or a kitten and write a message about it using invented spelling.
7. Then pass out the picture worksheets for assessment. Help each student name the picture and circle the pictures whose names have /i/.

Reference:
http://webmail.auburn.edu/redirect?http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie

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