A-Okay
In order for children
to learn how to read and spell words, they need to develop logic of
phonemic
awareness, as well as understanding that spellings map out phonemes in
spoken
words. Vowel sounds are the most important phonemes children can
learn
because they can be found in every written and spoken word.
Without the
knowledge of vowel sounds, written words cannot be properly
decoded. Beginning readers must not only know that words are made
up of
sounds, they must also learn the correspondences between written
letters and
their phonemes. This lesson will focus on the vowel
correspondence
a_e=/A/.
Chalk dry erase marker
Individual copies of the
book James
and the Good Day by Sheila Cushman and Rona Kornblum, Educational
Insights,
1990,
Individual picture pages
of with the
correct number of letterboxes underneath the picture,
Procedure:
1. Introduce the lesson by explaining that we use letters to write
down
words, and that these letters represent different sounds. In
order to
become good readers, we need to learn how to match the letters to their
sounds. Today, we are going to learn that the letters a_e
make the
/A/ sound. As you get to know the sound the a and e create, you will be able
to read and spell many words.
2.
Write the letter a and e on
the board. Explain that these letters make the /A/ sound.
Ask
students: “Have any of you ever heard the phrase, “A-okay”?
Good! This is the sound you hear when a
and e are written. Everyone try
it. Great!
3.
Now I have a fun tongue twister. Display the tongue twister that
is
written on the larger poster. Read the tongue twister to the
class, “James
likes to play games.” Now let’s read it together, but this time
every time
you hear a word with the /A/ sound, I want you to say “A-okay!”
“James
(A-okay) likes to play (A-okay) games (A-okay).”
Good! Can
anyone tell me a word they heard with the /A/ sound in it? Great
job!!
Let’s practice spotting the /A/ sound in some spoken words. Ask
the
students the following questions and call on them to answer. Do
you hear
/A/ in made or broken; wake or sleep; look or face? Very
Good!
4.
Ask the students to take out primary paper and pencil. “Most of you
already
know how to write the letters a and e.
We are going to practice this
together. On the board write an a, then go through the
following steps:
for lowercase a, you start under the fence then you go around
and touch
the sidewalk, around and straight down. Then write an e, while
explaining the
following steps to make an e: for lowercase e get in the center of the
space
below the fence, go toward the door (right), up to touch the fence
around and
up. Can anyone tell me what sound this makes? On three lets all say it
together!
A-okay! Please write five a’s and e’s on
your paper to represent the /A/ sound.” The
teacher can also model while students are writing. Walk around and view
everyone’s letters.
5.
Each child will now receive an Elkonin letterbox as well as the
appropriate
letter tiles. “Now we will practice using our knowledge of the /A/
sound
to spell words. This is how I would spell the word “made”.
First I
am going to unfold three of my boxes because made has three sounds, /m/
/A/ /d/. Made
does have four letters, but the e on
the end is silent and makes the a say
it’s name. I am going to start with the first sound I hear in made.
M-m-made. I hear the /m/ sound. I will place the letter “m”
in the
first letterbox. The next sound I hear is the a-okay /A/ sound. I
am
going to place the letter “a” in the second letterbox, because it is
the second
sound I hear. To finish I need to find the last sound in the word
made. Mad-d-de. I hear the /d/ sound, which means I will
place the
letter “d” in the last letterbox. All of you have your own letterboxes
and I
want you to try and spell some words the same way that I just
did. We
will first open out our letterboxes to only three boxes meaning that
each word
we spell contains three sounds.” I will now ask the children to
spell
wake, face, and tame. Once they finish spelling each word, we
will go
around the group and I will ask every child to explain to the other
members of
the group how they spelled the particular word. We will continue
on in
this manner spelling 4 phoneme words such as: brake, glade, and
skate.
Lastly, I will write each word, one at a time on the board (wake, face,
tame,
brake, glade, and skate) and call on students individually to read them
out
loud to the group.
6.
Now we will practice reading words with the /A/ sound in the book, James
and
the Good Day. Each child in the group will get an individual
copy of
this book. After you finish reading, I want you to write down at
least
three words you read containing the /A/ sound. Also, if I come
and tap
you on the shoulder I want to you read in a low voice so I can listen
to you. Before
you begin to read I want to tell you a little about James and the
Good Day.
James is an ordinary boy. One day he thinks that he would like to
have a
great day. Have you ever had a day like this? He makes a plan to make
sure
everything goes well. He decides that the first thing he will d0 is to
take a
bath so that he can sail his tug boat. So he fills the tub. He wants it
to be
as full as it can be. But he forgets about the running water. The tub
gets so
full that the water begins to make its way out of the tub. To find out
what
will happen you can read the rest of the story. After each child has
finished,
I will ask them to share the words that they found containing the /A/
sound. I will write them on the board and compile a list of all
the /A/
words in this text.
7.
For assessment, give each student a picture page with the correct
number of
letterboxes to spell the word underneath the picture. As a class,
we will
name the first picture and then I will have them spell the word in the
letterboxes below the picture. Remind the children that each box
has only
one sound. We will do this with each picture. Then I will
have the
picture words written on cards and I will have the students, one by
one, come
read the cards. This will allow me to hear each student say the
words
with the /A/ sound.
References:
Murray, B.A., and Lesniak, T. (1999) "The Letterbox
Lesson: A
hands-on approach for teaching decoding." The
Emily Watts, "Aaaaaa!"
It's Okay, Baby!, Beginning Reading Lesson design from Inspirations.