A Tisket-A-Tasket, Let’s Make a Flower Basket!!!

Rationale:  This lesson is designed to teach children how to, and the importance of, blending.  Being at the beginning reading stage, children have the prior knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and will learn to blend the letters and recognize blending in spoken words.  The goal is to increase the child’s fluency and blending abilities.

Materials: 3 or 4 construction paper baskets, sets of construction paper flowers with e, i, s, t, and p on them, Velcro, multiple copies of “Red Gets Fed” and “Liz is Six” (decodable books with blue dots)

Procedure:
1.    Review prior knowledge.  “OKAY KIDS, LET’S THINK ABOUT WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED SO FAR.  LET’S GO THROUGH THE ALPHABET AND SAY WHAT EACH LETER SAYS.  A SAYS ahhhh (a=/a/), B SAYS buh (b=/buh/), C SAYS cuh (c=/cuh/)…” and so on until you get to Z.  “GREAT JOB!
2.    Review correspondences e=/e/ and i=/i/.  “DO YOU HEAR e=/e/ IN BEG OR BAG?  FED OR LOG?  Children will answer BEG and FED.  “DO YOU HEAR i=/i/ IN BUG OR SICK?  DOG OR PIG?  Children will answer SICK and PIG.  “GREAT JOB KIDS!!!!”
3.    “DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO BLEND SOUND IN WORDS TOGETHER?  LISTEN TO ME.  WHAT WORD AM I SAYING?  Puh-iii-guh.  Puh-iii-guh.  Children should raise their hands and say PIG.  “WONDERFUL!  WHEN WE BLEND SOUNDS TOGETHER WE SMUSH THEM SO THEY MAKE A WORD.”
4.    “TODAY WE ARE GOING TO PLAY A BLENDING GAME WHERE WE MAKE A FLOWER BASKET.”  Each child will have a construction paper basket and flowers with the letters e, i, s, t, and p on them.  Together as a class we will “pick” our first set of flowers to show the children how the game works.  “OKAY KIDS, LET’S PICK OUR FIRST FLOWER.  LET’S MAKE A FLOWER BASKET FOR THE WORD PET.  Puh puh /p/--eeee /e/, tuh tuh /t/. EVERYONE PICK YOUR P AND STICK IT ON THE FIRST PIECE OF VELCRO IN YOUR BASKET.  NEXT, PICK YOUR E AND PLACE IT ON THE SECOND PIECE OF VELCRO.  LAST, PICK THE T AND PLACE IT ON THE LAST PIECE OF VELCRO IN YOUR BASKET.  LET’S SAY OUR WORD AGAIN AND REMEMBER TO BLEND THE SOUNDS TOGETHER.  p-e-t., PET.  FANTASTIC!!!”
5.    “NOW YOU ALL TRY.  HOW ABOUT THE WORD SAT.  SAY IT OUT LOUD SLOWLY SO YOU CAN HEAR ALL THE LETTER SOUNDS.  Sssss-aaaa-tttt.  PICK YOUR FLOWERS AND SPELL THE WORD SAT.  RAISE YOUR HAND AND SHOW ME YOUR BASKET WHEN YOU ARE ALL DONE.  GREAT JOB!!!  Continue working with the children spelling PIT, TIP, and SET.
6.    After children have had time to practice their own blending with their baskets, bring the small groups together and have them read “Liz is Six” and/or “Red Gets Fed” to a partner and then have them switch.  These are decodable books that use the e=/e/ and i=/i/ phonemes, while reinforcing blending.  This will also serve as an assessment because the children will be reading in front of the teacher.  Take a running record of the readings and record miscues.

Added assessment:
Have the children sit around your desk individually and read the “flower baskets” to you.  This will allow you to assess their grasp of blending and also assess their phoneme awareness of e=/e/ and i=/i/.

References:
www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/elucid

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