Eerie Exits
 

Rationale:  Because short vowels are often the most difficult to identify, they need the most practice.  In order for children to learn to read and spell words, children need to make the connection between letters and phonemes.  This lesson will help children identify /e/= e, one of the short vowels.  Children will learn to recognize /e/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation and a letter symbol, then practice finding /e/ in words.

Materials:  Primary paper and pencil; chart with ãElephants exit excitingly every secondä; GO FISH! (a game) a set of illustrated cards (for each group of students) with words with the short e sound in them; a set of cards (red and green) for each student; a book that focuses on the /e/ sound; and a picture page with elephants, eggs, bed, lead, pet, card, mouse, light, and window.

Procedures:
1. Introduce the lesson by explaining to the child how important it is to be able to read and spell.  It is how people communicate. We learn to read and spell so we can order food, do our homework, write our friends letters, and read the letters they send to us.  One way to begin to learn how to read and spell is to learn what the letters stand for- the mouth moves we make as we say words.  Today we are going to practice words that have the short e sound.  In the beginning, short e will be hard to identify, but after becoming acquainted with /e/, you will be able to pick out words with this same sound.
2.  Ask students: Have you ever heard a creaky door open in an old house and it sounded like this /e/?  This /e/ is the sound we are looking for in words.  Here is how you can spot /e/ in words.  Sound /e/ out very slowly like opening a creaky door.  Try saying elephant, eeeleeephant.  See how the word elephant had the /e/ sound.
3. Letâs try a tongue twister.  ãElephants exit excitingly every second.ä [on chart] Now letâs say it again, but this time stretch the /e/ at the beginning of the words. ãEeeleeephants eeexit eeecitingly eeeveeery seeecond.ä  I want us to try this again and this time break /e/ off the word.  ã/e/ lephants /e/xit /e/xcitingly /e/very second.ä Good job!
4. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil.]  We can use the letter e to spell /e/.  Letâs write it on your paper.  Begin at halfway between fence and sidewalk.  Draw a line across, curve up to the sky, curve back down all the way to the sidewalk and then curve halfway up to the fence.  I am now going to look at everyoneâs letter e.  After I look at your e, then I want you to make an entire row of the letter e.  From now on, when you see the letter e by itself, you will know the /e/ sound it makes.
5. Allow kids to play GO FISH! to help them become more familiar with words that have /e/. Put the students into groups.  A deck consists of words with /e/.  There will be four of each word.  For example, one word from the deck would be eggs.  A child would try to get all four of the egg cards in order to make a book.  The child with the most books wins.
6. Read a book that focuses on the /e/ sound.  Read it again, and have students raise their hands on each /e/ word.  When they hear words with /e/ raise the green card and when they donât raise the red card. Next, have them write their words on the board.  Finally, have the students write their own tongue twister using the /e/ sound.
7. To assess the students on what they learned, I will distribute the picture page and have each student circle the pictures whose names have /e/.
 

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