“The Scary
Letter…aaaaaaaaaa!!!”
Beginning
to Read
Sarah
Sullivan
sulliss@auburn.edu
Rationale:
When children are first beginning to read, it is important that
they understand
that each letter represents a different sound. In order to become a
fluent
reader, children need to understand the phonemes in words. The short
vowel
sounds are a great way to begin teaching children the phonemes of
letters since
every word has a vowel in it. Today the students will learn the a=/a/
correspondence through spelling and reading words with the
correspondence in
it.
Materials:
-Chart with
tongue twister “Angry
Anna asks the alligator for an apple”
-Letter Boxes
-Plastic letters
for each student
(a,m,c,t,s,d,h,g,r,b,l,n,k,p,s,r)
-Larger letters
and letter boxes
for demonstration purposes
-Copy of Pat’s
Jam by Phonics
Readers
-Primary
paper/pencil
-Card stock
paper with words: fat, lap, big, man, am, has, tip, bam,
sat,
pop, fat, ham, pet, sad, pam
Procedure:
- Alright class
today we are going to learn about the special letter a. This letter
makes the sound aaaaa like if you were to see a ghost you would say
aaaaaa because you are scared (place hands on face near mouth as you
would when scared). We are going to use the hand motion and sound to
help us remember the a=/a/ sound.
- Now I have a
tricky tongue twister we are going to say with our special new sound in
it. I’m going to say it first and you all listen to all the /a/ sounds
that you hear. “Angry Anna asks the alligator for an apple”. Did
everyone hear our special sound? Alright lets say it together “Angry
Anna asks the alligator for an apple”. Great job now this time lets say
it again stretching out our /a/ sound and making the motion as if we
were scared. “aaangry aaanna aaasks the aaalligator for aaan aaapple”
- Now we are going
to use our letter boxes to spell some words with our special sound in
them. Remember we put one sounds in each box but every word is going to
have our special sound /a/ in it. Watch how I model spelling the word
glad in my letter boxes (model for students showing each sound). Ok now
everyone spell the words I say in your boxes. 2 phonemes- am; 3
phonemes- cat, sad, hat; 4 phonemes-grab, glad, snack, black, camp,
glass; 5 phonemes- crash. As students spell the words I will walk
around the class room monitoring how they are spelling and if they make
a mistake I will pronounce how the word that they had spelled and see
if they make the correction. After everyone in the class spelled the
word correctly I will model it in front of the class.
- Alright now I am
going to hold up some words. Some will have the /a/ sound in them and
some will not so listen carefully to the sounds that you hear. When you
hear a word with the /a/ sound say aaaa and hold your hands up on your
face like you are scared. Read the words : fat, lap, big, man, am, has,
tip, bam, sat, pop, fat, ham, pet, sad, Pam.
- Now I am going to
spell some of the words we just spelled in our letter boxes and you all
tell me the word I am saying. I will spell the words we used in our
letter box lesson with you the letter boxes and then students will read
what I spelled.
- Now we will read
our book Pat’s Jam. Pat the rat is driving and his van one day and see
his friend Pam. Pat has a ham and Pam has jam. Lets finish reading to
find out what happens when they try and go for a ride in Pats van. The
students will read the book out loud to themselves. I will walk around
the classroom and monitor the students reading and help them with
problems that they are having.
- Ok now that we
know the sound that our special sound /a/ that our letter a makes lets
practice writing out letter. Begin with your pencil on the fence of
your paper and draw a circle going down to the ground. After you draw
your circle draw a line straight down on the right side of the circle.
Now practice drawing ten a’s by yourself on your paper.
Assessment:
The students will come up one at a
time and read some words on flash cards with the short a sound in them.
Also I
will look at their writing of the letter a and see if they write it
properly
and if now, then help them with more practice.
Sources:
Murray, B.A., & Lesniak, T. (1999).
The Letterbox Lesson: A hands-on approach for teaching decoding. The Reading Teacher,
52,
644-650
A Cat Nap by Erin Cooper. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/catalysts/cooperbr.html
Baa
Baa … I’m Pat the Lamb by Jenna Goodwin
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/catalysts/goodwinbr.html
Pat’s Jam by Phonics Readers. 1990
Educational Insights. Carson, Ca
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