Ed the Elephant
Emergent Literacy Lesson
Rationale:
This lesson aims to teach kindergarteners how to detect the phoneme /e/ in
spoken words. Students will learn
to recognize /e/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (a
elderly person that cannot hear) and the letter symbol
e, practice finding /e/ in words, and
apply phoneme awareness with /e/ by having students perform a hand gesture when
they hear /e/. This lesson will guide students to understand the correspondence
of e = /e/ and assist them in reading
and writing with this correspondence.
Materials:
Primary paper and pencil
Poster with ''Ed the Elephant loves to
enjoy eggs every morning.''
Plain paper
Crayons
Decodable Text – Red Gets Fed
Assessment worksheet
Procedures:
1. Say: Did you know that reading and writing letters are like breaking a secret
code? The tricky part is what the letters stand for and the way our mouth moves
as we say words. Today we are going to become expert code breakers by spotting
the mouth move /e/. We spell /e/
with the letter E. /e/ sounds like
a person who cannot hear what you are saying, eehhh.
2. Let's pretend someone is talking to us and we cannot hear them.
Let's put our hand up to our ear and say, eehhh (doing the hand gesture
when saying the sound). Does anyone
notice what your mouth is doing? We open our mouths and our tongue stays on the
bottom of it.
3. Let me show you how I would check to see if the /e/
is in bed.
I am checking for a /e/ like a
person trying to hear something: /be/, /beeeed/. I do hear /e/ in the middle of
bed.
Let me check fled: /fl/, /fleeed/
- there' s the /e/ in fled.
Now I am going to check cat:
/ca/, /caaat/. There is no /e/ in cat.
4. Let' s try a tongue tickler [on poster].
''Ed the Elephant loves to enjoy eggs every morning.'' Everyone say it
together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /e/ in each of the words
/eeeee/. ''Eeeeed the eeeeelephant loves to eeeeenjoy eeeeggs eeeeevery
morning.'' Try it again, and this
time break it off the word: ''/e/d the /e/lephant loves to /e/njoy /e/ggs
/e/very morning.'' Great job!
5. [Have the students take out primary paper and pencil.] We use the letter E to
spell /e/. [Model how to write the
letter as you walk the students through the process verbally.] Capital E looks
like a straight up and down line with three lines coming out of the side, one at
the top, the middle, and the bottom.
Let's write the lowercase letter e.
First draw a short, sideways line.
Curve it around to make a c
shape, with the line in the middle. I want to see everyone's
e's.
After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
6. Now let's see if we hear the /e/
sound in spoken words. Do you hear /e/ in pet or mat? [Call on student for each
set of words.] net or
goal?
bed or
couch?
nest or
house? Let's see if you can spot the
mouth move in some words. I want
everyone to put their hand up to their ear when you hear /e/:
pet, mat, net, goal, bed, couch, nest,
house.
7. Now let's read the book, Red Gets Fed.
Red is Meg's pet who is very hungry and wants to be fed.
As I read, I want you to put your hand to your ear every time you hear
/e/. When we are done reading, I am
going to let you draw a pet and give it a name that has the /e/ sound in it.
[Pass out paper and crayons and let the students name their pet using /e/, then
display their work.]
8. Show RED and model how to decide if it is
red or
rod. The E makes me put my hand up to
my ear as if I cannot hear, /e/, so
the word with the correct sound is r-eeeee-d.
Now you try SET: sat or
set? GET:
bet or
bat? MET:
met or
mat?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet.
http://www.funfonix.com/worksheets/book1_page9.php
Students are to circle each picture that has the /e/
sound and X the pictures that do not have the sound.
If time permits, the students can color the pictures that have circled.
Call the students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step
8.
References:
Worksheet:
http://www.funfonix.com/worksheets/book1_page9.php
Red Gets Fed,
Carson. Educational Insights 2000.
Amber Mullinax, Excellent Eddie
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/chall/mullinaxel.html
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