Aye, Aye Captain!
By Morgane East
A Beginning Reading Lesson
Rationale:
This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence i_e =
/I/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings
that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize,
spell, and read words containing the spelling i_e. They will learn a
meaningful representation (a sailor saying “Aye, aye Captain”) to help them
remember the pronunciation, they will spell and read words containing this
spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that mainly contains
the correspondence i_e = /I/.
Materials:
-Image
of a sailor saluting the captain
-Whiteboard and markers
-Elkonin boxes for modeling
-Elkonin boxes for each student
-Letter manipulatives for each student: I, i, k, e, m, t, l, p, r, s, n, d
-List of spelling words on poster board or whiteboard: Ike, time, lime, pile,
rim, spine, stride
-Decodable text: Kite Day at Pine Lake
-Fun Fonix Long I assessment worksheet
Procedures:
Step 1:
In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to
pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with i,
like bib, and today we are going to learn about long I and the silent
e signal that is used to make I say its name, /I/. When I say /I/ I think of
a sailor saying “Aye, aye Captain!” (show image representation). Now let’s look
at the spelling of /I/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /I/ is with the
letter i and a signal e at the end of the word to tell me to say
I’s name. (Write i_e on the board.) This blank line here means there is a
consonant after i, and at the end of the word there is a little silent
e signal.
Step 2:
Before we learn about the spelling of /I/, we need to listen for it in some
words. When I listen for /I/ in words, I hear i say its name /I/. When I
say /I/ my jaw drops and comes back up, and the sides of my tongue touch the
inside of my top teeth as I say /I/. (Make vocal gesture for /I/.) I’ll show you
first: bike. I heard i say its name and I felt my jaw drop and
come back up with the sides of my tongue touching the inside of my top teeth
[exaggerate motion pointing out how my jaw drops and comes back up]. There
is a long I in bike. Now I’m going to see if it’s in pit. Hmm, I didn’t
hear i say its name and my jaw didn’t drop to make the /I/ sound. Now you
try. If you hear /I/ in one of the words I say I want you to say, “Aye, aye
Captain!” If you don’t hear /I/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in ripe, pain, cat,
like, pin, pipe?
Step 3:
What if I want to spell the word stride? “I have a small stride because
my legs are short.” Stride is the distance between my feet when I take a
step. To spell stride in letterboxes, first I need to know how many
phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /s//t//r//I//d/. I
need 5 boxes. I heard that /I/ just before the /d/ so I’m going to put an i
in the 4th box and the silent e signal outside the last box. The word
starts with /s/, so I need an s. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going
to say it slowly, /s//t//r//I//d/. I think I heard /t/ so I’m going to put a
t right after the s.
There’s one more phoneme before the /I/, hmm . . . /s//t//r//I//d/, I
think I heard growling /r/. I have one empty box now. (Point to letters in boxes
when stretching out the word: /s//t//r//I//d/.) The missing one is /d/. Now I’ll
show you how I would read a tough word. (Draw attention to the list of words on
the board with spine on the top and model reading the word.) I’m going to
start with the i_e; that part says /I/. Now I’m going to put the beginning
letters with it: s-p-i_e, /spI/. Now I’ll put that chunk together with the last
sound, /spI-n/. Oh, spine, like “My grandfather broke his spine.”
Step 4:
Now I’m going to get you to spell some words in letterboxes. We’ll start out
easy with two boxes for Ike.
Ike is a boy name: “Ike went to the store for his mother.” What should go in
the first box? (Respond to children’s answers). What goes in the second box?
What about silent e, did you remember to put it outside the boxes? I’ll
check your spelling while I walk around the room. (Observe progress.) You’ll
need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound to
spell in the first box. Then listen for /I/ and remember to put the signal
silent e at the end, outside the boxes. Here’s the word:
time, “I don’t have time to
go shopping today”; time. (Allow children to spell remaining words:
lime, pile, rim, spine, and stride.)
Step 5:
Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled. (Have children read
words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list
until everyone has had a turn.)
Step 6:
You’ve done a great job at reading words with our new spelling for /I/: i_e. Now
we are going to read a book called Kite
Day at Pine Lake. This is a story about a bunch of kids that go to the lake
to fly their kites, but Bob is sad because he does not have a kite. Let’s pair
up and read the story to find out if Bob cheers up. (Children pair up and take
turns reading alternate pages while teacher walks around the room monitoring
progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Kite Day at Pine
Lake aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.)
Step 7:
Before we finish our lesson about one way to spell /I/ = i_e, I want to see how
you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have some words missing.
Your job is to read the short passage on the left of the paper and circle the
picture of words that are in the passage. First try reading all the sentences,
then pictures that represent long i
words from the sentences. Check your answers to make sure you only circled
pictures in the story. (Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child
progress.)
References:
Assessment Worksheet:
http://www.funfonix.com/worksheets/book3_page16.php
Noie Yancey, Oh, Oh, My Knee Hurts:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/yanceybr.htm.
Unknown. Kite Day at Pine Lake.
Carson, CA. Educational Insights, 1990. 8pgs.