Rationale:
There is a strong connection between children's levels of phonemic awareness after training and later successful reading.  Studies have also found that levels of phonemic awareness relate to achievement in spelling.  In this lesson we will cover the correspondence /e/.  Students will have practice identifying the /e/ sound in words, pronouncing the /e/ sound with the grapheme e, and reading e=/e/.  A student must learn to recognize phonemes in print in order to become a fluent reader.

Materials:
Elkonin Boxes for each student.
Letters: b, e, d, f, l, l, p, n, r, t, s, t
Marker or Chalk board (marker or chalk)
Red Gets Fed.  Carson, CA: Educational Insights, 1990.

Procedures:
1. Review the short a sound.  List short a words on the board (ham, can, fat, damp, scan, flash, that, grand).  Read the words chorally and listen to see that all the students read the words correctly.  If they miss one the read back over it emphasizing the short a sound.
2. Introduce the phoneme /e/.  Say the phoneme, have the children watch your mouth as you say it, and have them repeat the sound.  "The sound for today is /e/.  Watch me as I hold it out, /eeeee/.  Now you try saying it."
3. Write the tongue twister on the board.  Say the phoneme using the tongue twister, Eddy the egg enters the elevator.  Have the students repeat it after you.  "Repeat this tongue twister after me.  Eddy the egg enters the elevator.  Can you see which letters make the /e/ sound?" (Underline the letters as the students call them out.)
4. Draw Elkonin Boxes on the board to do a letterbox lesson.  Explain that we will spell words with the /e/ sound using e and we will review the /a/ sound.  Have students get out their own letterboxes to work with at their desk.  They will need the following letters: b, e, d, f, l, p, n, r, t, l, s, t.
5. Demonstrate spelling a word with the correspondence e.  Spell the word FED.  "The first word we are going to spell is FED.  Have you fed the dog?"  Write the letters in the boxes explaining each step you take to sound out the phonemes and decide which box they go into.  "/fff/ F is the first letter, /feeddd/ D goes in the last box, /feeeed/ E says /e/ so it goes in the middle box.  F-E-D spells FED."
6. Have the students spell the following words in their own letterboxes.
Bed (3 phonemes)
Fell (3)
Pen(3)
Red(3)
Tell(3)
Cat (3)
Ran (3)
Lend(4)
Sent(4)
Test(4)
Camp(4)
Spent(5)
7. Have students pair up to read a book.  Make sure that lower readers are paired with more advanced readers so that the advanced students may help the lower ability students.  Have them read Red Gets Fed.  As the students read, walk around the room to listen in and make sure that they are not having trouble with the e=/e/ and other vocabulary.  Before they read inroduce the book by saying "this book is about a dog named Red.  Do you have a dog?  In this book Red is very hungry.  Maybe you have had to feed your dog before.  Let's read the book to find out how Red gets fed."
8. Assessment: Have the students write the words with the /e/ sound as you call out a pair of words.  They may use their letterboxes to help them.
"In which word do you hear the /e/ sound?
Say or led?   Lone or sell?  duck or hen?  Talk or yell?  Tall or bend?  Gone or sent?  Sleep or rest?"

References:
Murray, B.A., & Lesniak, t. (1999).  The letterbox lesson: A hands-on approach to teaching
    decoding.  The Reading Teacher, 52, 644-650.

Eldredge, J. Lloyd (1995).  Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms.  New Jersey: Merrill,
    1995. pp.25-26.

Red Gets Fed.  Carson, CA: Educational Insights, 1990.