Elizabeth Brinkley
Spotting
Hidden Vowels
Emergent
Literacy Design
Rationale:
To
learn to read and spell words, children need the
alphabetic insight that letters stand for phonemes and spellings map
out the
phonemes in spoken words. Before children can match letters to
phonemes, they
have to recognize phonemes in spoken word contexts. Short vowels are
probably
the toughest phonemes to identify. This lesson will help children
identify /i/
(short i). They will learn to recognize /i/ in spoken words by learning
a
meaningful representation and a letter symbol, and then practice
finding /i/ in
words.
Materials:
Primary
paper and pencil; chart with
“Jill and Liz sit still while their big sister is mixing milk into her
coffee“;
drawing paper and crayons; Liz Is Six (Educational Insights);
a picture
of a large eye on a stick (enough for all the children and myself),
picture
page that illustrates the following words:
big, bag, sip, six, jig, bit, hit, rig, drip, tip, nit, wig,
wag.
1.
Introduce the lesson by explaining that our written language is a
secret code.
The tricky part is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves we
make as
we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /i/. At first /i/ will seem hidden in words, but
as you get to know it, you'll be able to spot /i/ in all kinds of words.
2.
Ask
students: Did you ever hear /i/? Can you help me spot /i/ different
words? That's the mouth move we're looking
for in
words. Let's hold up the eye when we spot /i/ (give each child one). We hold the eye up to show that we have
spotted the hidden /i/. Then say words
with /i/ and without /i/ such as: fix,
box, flip, flop, film, spit, spin, spun, bin, bun.
3.
Let's
try a tongue twister [on chart]. "Uncle was upset because he was unable
to
put his umbrella up." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it
again, and this time, stretch the /i/ at the beginning of the words.
“Jiiill
and Liiizz siiit stiill while their biiig siiister iiis miiixing miiilk
iiinto
her coffee.” Try it again, and this time
break it off the word: “J /i/ ll and L
/i/ z s /i/ t st /i/ ll while their b /i/ g s /i/ ster /i/ s m /i/ xing
m /i/
lk /i/ nto her coffee.”
4.
[Have
students take out primary paper and pencil]. We can use letter i
to
spell /i/. Let's write it. Start at the fence.
Without lifting your pencil, draw straight down and end at the
sidewalk. Now give him a feather. I want to see everybody's i. After I
put a feather on it, I want you to make nine more just like it. When
you see
letter i all by itself in a word, that's the signal to say /i/.
5.
Let me
show you how to find /i/ in the word split.
I'm going to stretch split out in
super slow motion. S-p-l-i-t.
S-p-i-i-i…
There it is! I do hear /i/ in split?
6.
Call on
students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /i/ in mix
or match?
sit or stand? Skip or run? In or
out?
Splish or splash? [Pass out a card to each student.]
Say: Let's
see if you can spot the mouth move /i/ in some words.
7.
Say: “Liz
gets a mitt when she turns six. Liz and
pig play ball with the mitt. Liz hit’s
the ball to pig. Can Pig get the ball
when Liz hits it?“ Read Liz Is Six and
talk about the story. Read it again, and have students raise their
hands when
they hear words with /i/. List their words on the board. Then have each
student
draw a Liz and pig with the mitt and write a message about it using
invented
spelling. Display their work.
8.
For
assessment, distribute the picture page and help students name each
picture.
Ask each student to circle the pictures whose names have /i/.
The
Reading Genie. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/letters.html