“Eddie the Excited Elephant”
Emergent Literacy
Rationale: In
order for children to learn how to read and spell words, they need to
be able
to recognize each letter in the alphabet and the phoneme it makes. For children to recognize phonemes in spoken
words and their corresponding letters or spelling maps they must be
able to
distinguish phonemes in their oral contexts (
Materials:
*Primary paper enough for every student and pencil
*Primary lined sentence strip
with “Everybody saw Eddie the elephant exit the elevator excitedly.”
*Big
picture of an elephant with Eddie written at the top; drawing paper and
crayons
*Smiley face stamp (or stickers)
*Ink pad
*Enough cards with question
mark of one side and /e/ on other for all students
*Book: Red Gets Fed
(Educational Insights)
*Picture page with bed, sent, car, neck,
box, nest, well,
ant, bus, fish, dust, and
pet (pictures are printed
off the computer or I will draw them).
Procedures:
1. Start the lesson off by explaining to students that written language can be difficult to learn. It is difficult because we have to learn what the letters are that stand for the mouth movements we make when we speak. Then move on to reviewing over previous letters that we have studied a,b,c,d, by holding pictures up with words that start with those certain letters. The students at one time will say out loud to the class what the letter is by saying the word. Then I will begin to introduce the new letter: “Today we are going to learn a new letter that comes after the letter “d” that we have studied. Does anyone know what that letter is? Correct it is the letter e. Listen and watch me say Eddie. Did you hear the /e/ sound in Eddie? Now everyone altogether say the /e/ sound with me.”
2. Holding the picture of
Eddie the elephant up, I will talk about him.
Say to student: “Has anyone ever
heard an old person say Eehh….What did you say?
Well when an old person makes the /e/ sound there mouth opens
and there
tongue goes behind there bottom teeth. Can
everyone see my picture of Eddie the elephant?
Well this elephant is very old.
Let’s pretend that we are an old elephant who can not hear very
well and
when we say the /e/ sound we will cup our hand behind our ear. I will demonstrate. Now
everyone say Eehh….What did you say? and
put your hand behind your ear.”
3. Displaying the tongue twister in the front of the classroom say: Let’s try a tongue twister (written on sentence strip and taped on board). “Everybody saw Eddie the elephant exit the elevator excitedly.” I will say it first then ask the class to say it with me three times all together. Then the next time I will say it by stretching the /e/ sounds out at the beginning or the words. “Now everyone say it together like I just did. Eeeeverybody saw Eeeeddie the eeeelephant eeeexit the eeeelevator eeeexcitedly. Try it again and this time break off the word: “/e/ verybody saw /e/ ddie the /e/ lephant /e/ xit the /e/ levator.” Eehhxcellent work!”
4. (Hand out primary paper to the students and have them get pencils out) say: “We can use the letter e to spell the mouth move /e/. Now we are going to write the letter e. Start halfway between the fence and the sidewalk. Draw a straight line towards the right window and curve up and touch the fence. Go towards the left window and draw a curve down to the sidewalk. Go towards the right window with a little curve. You should finish halfway between where you started the e and the sidewalk.” (I will model it for the class.) “I want to come around and see everyone’s eehhxcellent letter e. When I stamp it with a smiley face, then I want you to make six more just like it. Now whenever you see the letter e all by itself in a word that is your clue to say /e/.”
5. Next I am going to show everyone how to find /e/ in the word spent. I am going to stretch spent out in a very slow motion so you can listen for the eehh? S-p-s-p-s-p-e-e-n-t. S-p-s-p-s-p-e-e-e-e.. There, finally, that is the sound. I hear the eehh… in the word spent.
6. Now we are going to see
how
well everyone can use their skills to hear /e/ in spoken words. Hand out cards with /e/ on one side and
question mark on other side. Then say:
“Whenever I call out a word with the /e/ sound I want everyone to put
up the
side of the card that has /e/ on it. If
you do not hear the /e/ sound in the word then turn the card to the
question
mark side.” Demonstrate by showing them
an example. Say: “Do you hear /e/ in bed or car? desk or table? dry or wet? deck or rust? sled or slant? Now let’s see if you can spot the mouth
move /e/ in some words. Put your hand up
to your ear when you hear /e/. Everybody,
saw, Eddie, the, elephant, exit,
the, elevator, excitedly.”
7. To help apply this lesson read Red Gets Fed and give the class a brief book talk. Tell them: Red is a dog who is very hungry and sneaky. Red goes around the house trying to wake up Meg and other family members in order to get some breakfast. Do you think that Red will get fed? When reading the story and talking about it remind the students of the /e/ phoneme that is presented. Then read it again and have the students raise their hands when they hear words with the sound /e/ in them. Then after reading have the students try to remember the words with the /e/ phoneme by asking them: what are some of the words in the book that you all raised your hand to? When I call on them and they answer I will write them on the board. Go back through book to see if any are left out. Next have the students draw Eddie the elephant or a picture from the story and write a message about it using invented spelling. Display their eehhxcellent work in the room.
8. To assess the students on the lesson, distribute picture page expressing and not expressing the e=/e/ sound. Help students name each picture then ask each student to identify and sound out the picture and circle those pictures that are expressing the e=/e/ phoneme. I will walk around while they are working on this sheet to observe their ability to recognize and correctly sound out the e=/e/ phoneme, while also providing help if they need to be reminded of the visual motion or any other thing that they learned at the beginning of the lesson.
Reference:
Red Gets Fed,
Adams, Marilyn Jager. (1990) Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about: A Summary.
Center for
the Study of Reading Research and
Urbana-Champaign. Print.
Huff, Nicole.
"Eehh?" is for eleven elephants." http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/innov/huffel.html
Burns, Kim.
"Ehhh...What'd you say?" http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/breakthroughs/burnsel.html
Murray,
Bruce.
“Example of Emergent Literacy Design: Sound the Foghorn.”
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/connect/murrayel.html
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