Adam’s Apples
Melanie Tew
Emergent Literacy Design
Rationale:
To learn
to read and spell words, children need to know that
letters stand for phonemes and spellings map out those phonemes in
spoken
words. Before children can match letters to phonemes, they need to be
able to
recognize phonemes in spoken words.
Short vowels are probably the toughest phonemes to identify.
This lesson
will help children identify /a/ (short a).
They will learn to recognize /a/ in spoken words by learning a
meaningful
representation and a letter symbol, and then practice finding /a/ in
words.
Materials:
Primary
paper and pencil; chart with "Adam asked Abby for an axe to chop his
apples."; drawing paper and crayons; Rap
a Tap Tap by Leo and Diane Dillon (Scholastic. Broadway, NY. 2002.);
pictures
of objects with and without /a/: hat, map, tree, bag, apple, lake,
mailbox,
bat, bed, fish, track.
Procedures: 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 being able to see the mouth move
/a/. At first /a/ will seem hidden in
words, but
as you get to know it, you'll be able to spot /a/ in all kinds of words.
2.
Ask students: Have you ever seen people riding down a roller coaster
screaming
/a/? That's the mouth move we're looking for in words today. Let's
pretend we
are going down a roller coaster and say /a/. [Throw hands in the air as
if
riding a roller coaster.] We say /a/ to express the thrill we feel when
riding
fastly down a roller coaster. Ride down your roller coaster: /a/.
3.
Let's try a tongue twister [on chart]. "Adam asked Abby for an axe to
chop
his apples." Now everyone say it together. [Repeat twice more.] Now say
it
again, and this time, stretch the /a/ at the beginning of the words.
"Aaadam aaasked Aaabby for an aaaxe to chop his aaapples." Try it
again, and this time break it off the word: "/a/ dam /a/ sked /a/ bby
for
an /a/ xe to chop his /a/ pples."
4.
[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We can use letter a to spell /a/. Let's write it. Start at
the fence. Draw a circle downward to the sidewalk and back up to the
fence.
Now, without lifting your pencil, draw a line straight down to the
sidewalk. I
want to see everybody's a. After I
put a star on it, I want you to make nine more just like it. When you
see
letter a all by itself in a word,
that's the signal to say /a/.
5.
Let me show you how to find /a/ in the word crash. I'm going to stretch crash
out in super slow motion and listen for the roller coaster
scream. Cr-cr-cr-a-sh.
Cr-cr-cr-a-a-a... There it is! I do
hear the scream /a/ in crash.
6.
Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /a/ in mat or mate? Cash or check? Bag or boat? Fat or thin? Back or bake? [Pass out a card to each student.]
Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /a/ in some words. Throw
your
hands in the air if you hear /a/. Adam, asked, Abby, for, an, axe, to,
chop,
his, apples. [Note: an does not have
/a/].
7.
Say: "This is Bojangles. He loves
to dance and make people happy. The
people around town know him, but will he
ever become a famous tap dancer?"
Read Rap a Tap Tap and talk
about the story. Read it again, and have students raise their hands
when they
hear words with /a/. List their words on the board. Then have each
student draw
a man tap dancing 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 /a/.
References: Earl, Laura. Abby’s
Alligator. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/begin/earlel.html
Slocum,
Laura. AAAAAAAAAAA! Stop Crying!
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/constr/slocumel.html
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