Blending lesson plan

BASEBALL BLENDING

Rationale:

· Blending is the ability skillful readers acquire which enables them to link known phonemes together to produce a working word. If a child understands the idea of blending, they will be able to read any word. If students get the right practice it will help them decide more quickly on the word. This lesson will use the Body-Coda method to blend because it is the easiest way to blend.

Materials:

Piece of poster board cut out in the design of a baseball glove
Red baseballs with the letters “a (8), c (2), f(2), j, r (2), s” written on them and white baseballs with the letters b, d, g, n, m, p, r, t written on them.
Smaller versions of the same baseballs for each student.
Velcro that will let you to temporarily stick baseballs with letters inside of the glove.
A book like Educational Insights, A Cat Nap, By Sheila Cushman, 1990.

Procedures:

“Today we are going to learn how to blend. Blending is a lot like rhyming. When you blend you have to make each sound run together smoothly. Blending is a fun thing to do and it is also very important. In order to read, we must first learn to blend.”
Can anyone remember the sound that the short a makes? That’s right! It says /a/, just like the sound a crying baby makes. Today we will use the /a/ sound to blend our letters together. Listen as I blend these letters together, /fa/ /n/, faaann. Who can tell me the word they heard from those three sounds? Very good, I said fan. Today we are going to learn a fun way to help us remember how to blend words.”
Show the children the cut out of the baseball glove. You will now explain how to blend the baseballs. “Can everyone tell me what this is? Right! It’s a baseball glove. Well, this glove really wants to catch some baseballs. However, it just cannot catch any baseball. He wants his baseballs to form a word! Guess what! We can help!
“I have given you each a set of baseballs. The baseballs have letters written on them. These letters make sounds. Our job is to blend the baseballs so that we can give the glove some baseballs that form a word! For example, in my hand I have two baseballs with the letters b and a on them. These baseballs make the sound “bbbaaaa” Who can tell me another baseball that I can add to these to make a word? How about it? By blending these sounds together we can make a new sound. This sound is a word! Listen as I blend them together---/ba//t/---bbbaaaaattttt. What word did we make? Right, bat.”
“Always remember that different sets of baseballs will make many different sounds.” Continue to model this with different letters until each child understands what to do.
“Now I want you all to go back to your desks and practice blending the baseballs. I will give each of you a set of baseballs. Remember that it takes two red baseballs and one white baseball to make a word.” The white baseballs should have letters b, d, g, n, m, p, r, t on them and the red baseballs should have the letters a (8), c (2), f (2), j, r (2), s on them. The students should have eight blending baseballs when they are finished. “I want to see how many blending baseballs you can make.” Walk around and make sure that the students are blending each word accurately. Make notes for assessment.
Now I am going to give each of you a copy of A Cat Nap and I’m going to walk around and listen to each of you read part of the story. Make miscue notes while listening. “Everyone needs to start reading the story and if I don’t get to you before you finish reading, just close your book, and practice more blending. I will get to you as soon as I can and when I do I will let you read part of the story to me.”
To make sure that the students completely understand how to blend, go over the procedure again during the day and week. For more practice, do another lesson like this but use a different vowel.

References:

Balloon Blending by: Ashley Higginbotham http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/higginbothambr.html

http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/blending.html

A Cat Nap, By Sheila Cushman, 1990.