“Easy
E Street”
II. Beginning to Read
Rationale:
In
order for
students to become successful readers, they must develop skills to help
them
decode words with success. Children need
to understand the alphabetic principle that spellings map the phoneme
sequence
of spoken words. It is helpful to teach students that the same letter
can make
more than one sound. It is also important for students to understand
that the
correspondences can be spelled and pronounced differently. This lesson
will
review e=/e/ and introduce ee=/E/ by using instruction, decodable
books, and
worksheets.
Materials:
Primary
paper,
pencils, Lee and the Team decodable
text (one per student), Elkonin letter boxes (one per student), 1 large
Elkonin
letter box drawn in permanent marker on transparency (for teacher),
overhead
projector, set of letters (divided equally for each student in Ziploc
baggie)
with the letters: b, c, d, e, e, g, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, and w,
permanent
marker, transparency, dry erase marker (other than black), poster with
tongue
twister: “Three sweet bees sleep under the tree”, worksheet with the
ee=/E/
correspondences to match the words with the pictures with the following
words:
tepee, sheep, wheel, green, creek, needle, sleep, queen, street (1 per
student).
Procedure:
1.)
First review
the /e/=/e/ correspondence and the sound. “Class, do you remember when
we
learned about short /e/? What sound does short /e/ make? Eeehhhhh!!!
That’s
right! Short /e/ sounds like someone hard of hearing saying Eeehhh!!!
Now I’m
going to say some words and I want you to raise your hand when you hear
a word
with short /e/. Do you hear the /e/ sound in pop or pet? Smell or
small? Brag
or best? Egg or yolk? Help or hike?” “Great job! The /e/ sound was in
pet,
smell, best, egg, and help.”
2.)
“Today, we’re
going to learn another sound /e/ makes. We just reviewed the sound
short /e/
makes, and today we will learn about long /E/. When I put e and e
together,
this is called ee=/E/ correspondence. Long /E/ sounds like someone who
is
scared and screams, EEEEEEEEEE!!!! Have you ever been scared
before?
Let’s pretend we are all scared and when I count to three, let’s makes
our long
/E/ sound. Ready? One, two, three! EEEEEEEE!!!!! Great Job!”
3.)
“Now I have a silly tongue twister to share with you. First, I will
read it to
you, and then I want you to say it with me. Listen carefully. Three
sweet
bees sleep under the tree. Now you say it with me this time. Three sweet bees sleep under the tree. Wonderful!
Now, we will say it again, but this time we will stretch out the /E/
sound
whenever we hear it. Ready? Let’s try it together. Threeeeee
sweeeeeet
beeeeees sleeeeeep under the treeeeeee. Excellent! Now, what sound
does the
ee=/E/ correspondence make? EEEEEE!!!! Way to go!”
4.)
Distribute Ziploc baggies of letters and individual letterboxes for
students.
Teacher uses overhead and begins by drawing 2 boxes. “Class, I’m going
to spell
the word bee, but I can’t remember if the ee goes in one box
together or
if they each get their own separate box. What do you think? Correct!
The two
e’s are buddies and always go together in one box since we only hear
one /e/
when we say bee. And the letter b goes in the first box. Great!
Now
let’s try 3 boxes.” Teacher draws another box and transparency. I’m
going to
spell meet. Like someone might say, It was good to meet
you the other
day! With this word, the ee goes in
the 2nd box. Then, we add our /m/ at the beginning and the
/t/ in
the last box.” Go through each word for the different letterboxes.
2-(bee,
see), 3-(meet, leek, tree), 4-(green, sweep, steep, speed), 5-(street,
screen).
Walk around the room and observe students letterboxes for each word to
see if
they are using the correct number of letterboxes and putting each
“mouth move”
in the correct box.
5.)
“Now I’m going to read you a story called Lee and the Team. Let
me tell
you about Lee. He is really great baseball player, but his team is
really lazy.
Suddenly, Lee realizes he and his teammates are late for a game. He’s
teammates
won’t get up. I wonder if they will make it to the game on time to
play! Let’s
read and find out what happens!” (Read Lee and the Team).
6.)
For assessment, give each student a worksheet with the ee=/E/
correspondence
and have them match the picture with the word.
References:
Cushman,
Sheila. (1990). Lee and the Team.
Murray,
B.A.,
& Lesniak, T. (1999). The Letterbox
Lesson: A Hands-on Approach for Teaching Decoding. The
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