Stacy Snyder
Beginning Reading Design
Rationale: Beginner
readers need to be taught how to break up the alphabetic code in order
for them
to learn how to read. They need to learn about phonemes and how
phonemes
are sounds that our mouths make when we talk. They also need to
understand the connection between phonemes and letters. Beginner
readers
need to be able to identify the sounds that each letter makes. By
learning about phonemes and letter correspondences, beginning readers
can
become fluent readers. Short vowels are extremely important and
sometimes
can be very difficult to learn. This lesson will help children
identify
the correspondence is u- /u/, one of the short vowels.
They will
learn to
recognize /u/ in spoken words
by learning a meaningful representation
and a
letter symbol, and then practice finding /u/ in words.
Materials:
-
Poster
with a person
on it with a big tummy.
-
Picture
card,
including pictures and words with velcro on them. Words:
up, rub, mud, bug, hug, stung, tummy,
plunge, smudge, cat, dot, yard, tooth, frog, six
-
Chart
with tongue twister on it: The mud pie
is yummy in my tummy.
-
primary
paper and
pencils
-
assessment
sheet
letterboxes with at least five boxes (words- rub, tug, tummy, smudge)
-
Book,
“Yummy, Yummy”
(Judith Grey 1981).
-
Letter
card with
single u on it
-
Letter
boxes for each
student including 5 boxes
-
Letter
tiles with
lower case letters on them. Letters: m, u, d, g, t, s, m, g, d, e, d,
u, p, m,
j, y.
-
Picture
page with
pictures of /u/ words and other letter.
Procedure: 1. Introduce the u = /u/ correspondence and how to spot it in written text. Today we are going to work with the letter u in written text (hold the letter u card for the students to see). The letter u makes the /u/ sound. How does our mouth move when we say /u/? Our mouth is open and our tongue stays still. This is like the sound you hear when you rub your tummy and say yummy. Everybody practice making the /u/ sound and rub your tummy with me.
2. To practice recognizing the /u/ in written text I will pass out the picture cards to the students. They will then decide if they hear the /u/ sound. If they do they will but the word on the poster of the person on it. The person will have a huge tummy and the students will put the /u/ words in the tummy. The students that receive words with other sounds will discard them at the bottom of the poster.
3. Now I want
us to practice saying our funny
sentence together. The
mud pie is yummy in my tummy. Say
it together several times. Now,
I want you
to say our tongue twister, but let’s stretch out the /u/ sound: The
muuuud pie
is yuuumy in my tuuuumy. Rub on your tummy when you hear the /u/ sound.
4. Draw Elkonin letterbox on the board for
teacher use during this
portion of the lesson. Make sure that each student has a letterbox with
his or
her own letter tiles. Ask the students to make sure that each student’s
tiles
on lower-case side up. We are going to practice spelling words with the
/u/
sound. Look at the board and notice that I have two boxes drawn—this is
for two
mouth movies. I am going to spell the
word up. The first box is for the first sound in up,
which is the
/u/, which is like when we rub our tummy. The second box is for the
/p/. Now
you are going to practice with the following words: {3}mud, tug, rub,
bug {4} drum, jump stung, tummy;
{5}plunge,
smudge . Make sure that each time the number of phonemes changes that
the
students are prompted to open their letterbox up by one more box. (A
review
word should be included.)
5. Next, I
will write each word from the
letterbox lesson on the
board one at a time. I will model for the students how to read the
words
written up on the board. We are going to read the word mud.
Let
us start
with the /u/, next let’s add the /m/--/mu/. Say it together. Now let’s
add the
last /d/ - /mud/. Our word is mud. Then I will call on one
student to
read the word, then have the class repeat the word as a group.
6. The
students will be placed in small groups
to read the book Yummy,
Yummy (Grey 1981). Book talk:
The Hippo loves to bake cakes. She loves to bake apple, carrot,
honey and
chocolate cakes. One day she decided
that she wanted to make a cake including all of these
ingredients.
To find out if the cake turns out or not, you
must read the book.
Assessment:
-
Students will be provided a picture page where they should circle the
pictures
with the /u/ sound.
-While
students work in their small groups I will be observing and taking
running
records as they read. I will then walk
around and observe the students and ask them questions about the
picture
page. “Which picture do you hear the /u/
sound? Show me what you do when you hear the /u/ sound.
I will model rubbing my tummy.
References
Grey,
Judith. (1981). Yummy, Yummy. Troll Associates.
Murray,
B.A. and Lesniak, T. (1999). The Letterbox Lesson: A hands-on approach
for
teaching decoding. The
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