Ally’s Apples
Beginning Reading Design
Rationale:
For children to achieve phonics, reading and spelling, they must first
understand the different phonemes. Children need to learn to recognize the
phoneme sounds by matching the 26 letters in our alphabet to the vocal gestures
we speak. This lesson will help students identify /a/, which is represented by
the letter a. After this lesson,
children will be able to recognize /a/ in spoken words through repetition, a
catchy tongue twister, and then will be evaluated through assessment, where
students will be able to make their own silly sentence using/a/. After reading
“Sam the Ant”, students will become more aware of the /a/ in more spoken words.
Materials:
1. Primary Paper
2. Pencils
3. “Ally’s apples sat on Abby’s mat” written on chart paper with a picture of
apples.
4. Letter Boxes
5. Letter Tiles (a, t, h, e, n, p, j, m, s, d, b)
6. Copies of the book
Sam the Ant,
by Eleanor McDavid, for each student
7. Card of the letter
a written on a picture of an apple,
“Ally’s Apple”
Procedures:
1. Explain to the students that every letter has a sound. “Our mouth moves
differently as we say different letters. Today, we will learn how to make the
sound that represents the letter a.
Show students the letter a written on
an apple.”
2. Ask students: “Have you ever opened your mouth wide to take a bite out of an
apple? Apple says /a/. When we stretch out the beginning of the word apple we
say ‘aaaaa’. Everyone try it together.”
3. (Take out chart with tongue twister): “Now let’s look at our tongue twister.
Ally’s apples sat on Abby’s mat. Now everyone say it together two times. This
time, while we read it aloud, we will put emphasis on the /a/ and stretch it
out. Say it like this, Aaally’s aaaples saaat on Aaaby’s maaat. Good, now let’s
try it again and this time we will break the /a/ off from the rest of the words.
/a/lly’s /a/pples s/a/t on /a/bby’s m/a/t. Great job!”
4. Next, we will see if the students can recognize /a/ in spoken words. “Now, I
am going to give you two words and you tell me which one has the /a/ sound in
it. I’ll give you an example. Do we hear /a/ in bat or pit? We hear /a/ in bat!
Now you try. Do you hear /a/ in vet or cat? Cat, correct! Do you hear /a/ in
class or nice? Class, correct! Do you hear /a/ in bolt or ax? Ax, correct!”
5. Next, we will begin the letterbox lesson. Explain the rules of letterboxes
and how each phoneme has a box. Say a word aloud and have the students break it
into phonemes using the boxes. Model the spelling and decoding of the first
word, crab. “So, when we hear the word crab, how many phonemes do we hear?
C-R-A-B, great, so we hear 4
phonemes. This means we will need 4 letter boxes laid out. Each letter will go
into its own box, like this!” Now you will try! Show the students the
letterboxes with the letters in them on the document camera. Then, have them try
the words at, nap, jam, sam, then, band, and mad. Walk around room to make sure
everyone understands, and review each word’s spelling on the document camera, as
well as reading the word aloud 2 times each and discussing the pronunciation of
each word once all students have finished.
6. Introduce the book Sam the Ant.
“This is Sam. He is an ant. Let’s find out all of his duties throughout the day
and how he helps his family.” Read Sam
the Ant on their own. Have a discussion about the story and the /a/ sound.
Read the story again, this time as a group, and have the students open their
mouths wide as if biting an apple when they hear the /a/. Write the words on the
chart paper at the end of the book and read each aloud.
7. For practice, ask the students to think of some more /a/ words that have not
been mentioned yet. Have them make a silly sentence like the one we read earlier
made up of 3 to 5 /a/ words. Have the students present to the class if they
wish. Then for assessment, teacher will call out words of her choice to the
students and have them write on a piece of notebook paper “yes” or “no”, as to
whether they feel that they can hear the /a/ sound in the words.
References:
-Foukal, Jenilee. Itsy Bitsy Indian.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/adventures/foukalbr.htm
-
Sam the Ant,
by Eleanor McDavid