Rationale:  Children need to be instructed and exposed to phoneme awareness in order to have an understanding of our written and spoken language.  This lesson will help children learn to read and spell words.  They will learn to recognize the correspondence i = /i/ in written words.  They will learn the sound i makes by learning a meaningful representation and how to spell and read words with the i = /i/ correspondence through a letterbox lesson and by reading a book.

Materials:  Chart with “Icky Sticky Inchworm”, Tin Man Fix It (Educational Insights), list of words to use in a letterbox lesson (three phonemes: hit, tin, pin; four phonemes: pins, trim, slip), list of words to use for assessment (three phonemes: big, sin, kid; four phonemes: spit, trip, list), letterboxes, laminated letters to use in letterbox lesson

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 letters to their sounds.  Today, we are going to learn that the letter i stands for the /i/ sound.
2. Show the chart with “Icky Sticky Inchworm.”  Let’s say it together.  Now say it again but this time stretch the /i/ sound.  “I-I-I-cky Sti-i-i-cky I-I-I-nchworm.”  We are going to learn how to spell and read words with the /i/ sound in them.  Show the students how to spell words using the letterboxes by saying: I’m going to spell a word that has three mouth moves in it.  The word is hit.  First I hear /h/, so I’m going to put an h in the first box.  Then I hear /i/, like in icky sticky inchworm.  That means an i comes next.  Then I hear /t/, so I’ll put a t in the last box.
3. Lay out the letters the child will need to spell the words in the letterbox lesson.  Use three letterboxes so the child can spell the three phoneme words you give him/her.  When you finish the three phoneme words use the same steps to complete the four phoneme words.
4. When you are finished, put the letterboxes away and spell the words for the child asking him/her to read the words used in the letterbox lesson.
5. Hand the child the book, Tin Man Fix-it and ask him/her to read it to you.  Allow the child to hold the book while they are reading and have the m point to each word as it is read.  As he/she reads, take a running record paying attention to the words the child misses so that you will know what correspondences the child needs to learn.
6. For assessment, have the child spell other words from the letterbox lesson.  When the child has completed the three and four phoneme words, spell the words and have the child read them to you.  Remember not to have the child read what he/she spells because you would have just told them the word.  This assessment will allow you to see if the child understands the correspondence i = /i/.

Reference:  Murray, B.A. and Lesniak, T. (1999). The Letterbox Lesson: A hands-on approach for teaching decoding.  The Reading Teacher, 644-650.   www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/breakthroughs/html

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