So many words!
                                                                                            Cheryl L. Hicks
                                                                                    Emergent Literacy Design

Rationale: To learn to read and spell words, children need to understand that there are words in sentences and that each word has a meaning. Before children can be expected to read, they must have the understanding of words and how words make up sentences.  This lesson will help the children understand that there are separate words that make up sentences. They will be learning the print concept that there is a one to one correspondence between the words read and the words spoken. They will learn this by having a read- a-loud and then the teacher cutting up sentence strips to demonstrate the concept followed by the students doing the same.

Materials: A page for each child with the following printed on it, “ I have nose like a hose, I suppose.”, child safe scissors (one for each child),  Sentence strips with the sentence “ But wherever I hide, my nose always shows.” and “Billy and Sue had a picnic together on Saturday.” , teacher scissors, markers, pencils for each child. And a copy of  A Nose Like a Hose  by Jenny Samuels

Procedures:  Introduce the lesson by explaining that sentences are made up of words. It is important to know where one word starts and where another one ends. The reason that this is important is because it makes our language so that others can understand it easily.

2. Ask the students: Have you ever looked at a book that has something more than only pictures?  We are going to learn today how to tell when a word ends and when another word starts. Can you tell when a word started and ends when I talk? “ I --- like -- ice-cream.We can do the same thing whenever we read. Just as there are spoken words there are written words. Today we are going to learn about words and how to tell when they start and stop on a page. Let think for a minute. When I read a book where am I getting the story from? Correct the words on the page.

3. Let’s try! I would like you to listen to this sentence: “Billy and Sue had a picnic together on Saturday.” I am going to say it slowly, and as I say it when you hear the end of a word I want to you make a cutting gesture with your hand.  Now, I am going to write this sentence on a sentance strip. Let wrok through how we are going to cut it up. (Model) Let see, there is space before and after Billy, so that is a word. there is a space before and after and, so and is a word.... and so on. So we can find words when there are spaces. If there are no spaces it is one word.

4. Again. Now if you will look up here, I have this sentence: But wherever I hide, my nose always shows. I need the entire class to tell me where I am supposed to cut this sentence up. Let the class work through where to cut.

5. Read : A Nose Like a Hose  by Jenny Samuels. As you read as the children every other page or so to tell you how many words are on the page. And ask them how long the word its and where the spaces are.

6. For assessment, distribute the sentence page and have the children draw where they think they need to cut. Teacher checks, then the child is allowed to cut.

Reference:   The Reading Genie http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie
Ingrid Caldwell Time to Rhyme  http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/breakthrough/cadwellel.html