Beginning to Read
The Squeaky Creaky Elevator
Rationale:
For
children to gain the ability to write, they must first understand an
important
component of language, phoneme awareness. Phoneme awareness is
the
recognition of vocal gestures when speaking. Teaching children to
recognize short vowel phonemes in words can aid them the most in the
beginning
and provides an important scaffold needed for them to gain
confidence.
This lesson will provide children a correspondence they will need to
build on,
the correspondence of e=/e/ in text and writing.
Materials:
Phoneme Graphic of rocking chair (picture attached)
Chart
with tongue twister
written on it (Everybody saw Eddie and the Eskimo enter the elevator on
the
elephant.)
Primary
paper
Pencils
A copy of
Red Gets Fed
for student
Flash
cards with letterbox words
written on them (beg, smell, egg, vent, let)
Elkonin
boxes for student
Letter
manipulative for student
(b, e, g, l, m, n, t, and v)
Procedure:
1. Begin lesson
with explaining the
graphic provided. Explain, "/e/ is like a rocking chair, it
squeaks
when it rocks back and forth making an eehhh, sound." Demonstrate
the gesture of rocking in the rocking chair and the /e/ sound.
2. Using
the chart, lead
students through the tongue twister stretching out the /e/ sound
saying,
"Let's see if we can make that /e/ sound together follow me
Eeeeverybody
saw Eeeeddie and the Eeeskimo eeenter the eeeelevator on the eeelephant
(rocking
every time you come to an /e/) That was Eeexcellent guys!"
3. After
practicing the tongue
twister a few times test the student’s ability by asking students to
identify
the creaky rocking chair sound in words given a choice between
two.
"In which word do you hear the creaky rocking chair /e/ sound in?
bed or sad? Egg or bat? Blend or bad? (ask individually.)"
Then allow children some freedom with their new found
correspondence by
letting them tell you which words they can think of that have the /e/
correspondence in them.
4. Begin
the letterbox lesson
here. Now that you are sure that the child has the correspondence
needed
to progress on, model the letterbox lesson for him.
Begin with LET ME SHOW YOU HOW TO USE THESE
BOXES TO SPELL OUT WORDS. FIRST REMEMBER
THAT JUST BECAUSE A WORD HAS 3 SOUNDS DOES NOT MEAN IT HAS ONLY 3
LETTERS. WE HAVE 3 BOXES HERE AND WE WANT
TO SPELL THE
WORD NECK. I HEAR /n/, THAT’S AN N. /e/ I HEAR A SQUEAKY ROCKING CHAIR. THAT’S AN E.
ONE MORE SOUND TO GO. I HEAR
/k/. I KNOW THAT CK SAYS /k/.
N-E-C-K.
THE LETTERS THAT WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE ONE SOUND SHARE THE SAME
BOX. Use the Elkonin boxes to complete a
letter
box lesson, have the student spell out the words 3-{beg, let, net} 4-
{smell, tend,
vent}. This will reinforce the idea of the creaky rocking chair
/e/ sound
correspondence. If the child incorrectly spells the word,
pronounce it
the way it was spelled and provide time for a self-correction, allow
child to
try time and then model how to complete the spelling, "vent, that is a
difficult word, lets stretch that one out. Vvvveeeeennnnnttttt,
vent, hmm
I heard that creaky rocking chair somewhere in there. Let’s map
it out
using our letter boxes! We heard that creaky rocking chair, that
sound
comes second in the word. I wonder what could come first,
vvvvvvent. That has the same sound as video and vanilla."
Continue
through with this process till the word is completed and then say the
word that
you have spelled. Continue the rest of the letterbox lesson until all
words
have been attempted.
5.
Provide a set of flash cards
with each word from the letter box lesson.
Have the student read each of the words.
(It is also acceptable to use the letters from the letterbox
lesson to
spell out the words without using the squares.)
6. Next
introduce the decodable
book: Red Gets Fed. "Guess what. Today we are going
to
read a book about a dog that really like to eat, Red. Red likes
to eat so
much that he asks everyone in his family for food. I wonder if he
can eat
all the food that he begs for. Let’s read and find out."
7. Pose a
message topic for the
child to write on such as "What is your favorite food?"
Assessment:
Take a running record while student reads decodable book.
Resources:
Murray, B.A., How to Teach a Letterbox
lesson
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/letbox.html
Cushman,
Sheila. Red
Gets Fed. Educational Insights: Carson, CA. 1990.
Wallach
and Wallach-
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/twisters.html
Boggs,
Adrienne. E’s are E-E-E-Excellent
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/begin/boggsbr.html.
