Uncle Understanding says Uhhh
Amanda Gluckman
Beginning Literacy
Rationale:
As students progress in their reading development, they learn that
there is a
relationship between the grapheme (letter) and the phoneme (sound) of a
written
word. Decoding words is an important tool for them to use in order to
read and
spell words correctly. In this lesson, the students will learn to
decode words
with the short vowel /u/. Short vowels are often difficult for young
readers,
and so it is important to dedicate time to teaching the
grapheme-phoneme
relationship of each. This lesson willss incorporate the spelling of
words as a
means of teaching the decoding skill, and then practicing how to read
and spell
words in and out of context.
Materials:
- Baggies of letter
tiles and
letterboxes for each student (each bag will contain a letterbox and the
letters: r, u, n, h, g, t, j, m, p, s, c, l, b, t)
- Teacher letter
box set big
enough for clear instruction and modeling
- Phoneme picture
of monkey
thinking
- Poster of
tongue-tickler
- Flash cards of
words to
read as a class (3—run, hug, gut; 4—jump, brush, club; 5— trust, scrub)
- Class set of
decodable
book, Fuzz and the Buzz
- Primary writing
paper for
each student
- Pencils
Procedure:
1.
"Today we
are going to learn a new sound for the letter 'u.' It makes the sound
/u/ like when you don't understand something and say "uhh." Look
at this picture of the monkey thinking. He is putting his pointer
finger on his
chin and says /u/."
2.
"Now
everyone try to do what the monkey is doing by putting your finger on
your chin
and saying /u/. Very good!"
3.
"We are
now going to learn a tongue twister to practice our /u/ sounds."
(Use poster). Say the tongue twister once, and then have the students
repeat it
several times so that they understand the sequence of words. Point to
the words
on the poster as they say them. "Uncle Understanding went under the
umbrella." "That sounds great!"
4.
"This
time when we say our tongue twister, I want you to put your
pointer-finger on
your chin like the monkey and stretch out the /u/ sound you hear in
each
word. Ready? "Uuuuncle Uuuunderstanding went uuuunder the
uuuumbrella." Great work!" Repeat this several times, emphasizing the
/u/ correspondence and using the "thinking" phoneme gesture.
5.
"Now we
are going to try and pick out the /u/ sound in words. I will say two
words and
you tell me which one has the /u/ sound in it. Here we go: Run or walk?
Bowl or
mug? Nut or fruit? That's very good!"
6. "Now everyone
needs
to get their baggies of letterboxes and tiles out for our letterbox
lesson.
Each box is represents a sound that you hear in a word. We are going to
spell
words with the /u/ sound today. I will show you how this works and then
you can
try it on your own. Our first word is going to be run. It
will
need three boxes. Listen to how I stretch out the sounds in
run—'rrrr-uuuu-nnnn'.
It's a good idea to sound out the word to yourself as you put the
letters in
their boxes. Put one sound in each box like this (Model how to put the
letters
in their boxes for the word run). 'Rrr-uuu-nnn'—the
first sound I hear in run is /r/, so I put the 'r' in the first box.
'Rrr-uuu-nnn'—then
I hear /u/ (make thinking motion like they practiced earlier), so I put
the 'u'
in the second box. 'Rrr-uuu-nnn'—then I hear /n/ so I put an 'n' in the
last
box. 'Rrr-uuu-nnn', that word says run."
7. "Now it's your
turn
to practice with some words! I will say a word, and then you try
spelling it in
your letterbox using the tiles that you have in your baggy. It's okay
to say the
word out loud as you spell it. Be sure to put just one sound in each
box."
Give students the words starting with 3 phonemes and increasing the
number up
to 5 phonemes: 3—run, hug, gut; 4—jump, brush, club; 5— trust, scrub
one at a
time and indicate how many boxes they will need for each word.
"Whenever
you are done spelling the word, raise your hand and I will come around
to check
it. Feel free to ask your neighbor to check your spelling also!"
8.
After the
letterbox lesson, introduce the book Fuzz and the Buzz.
"Fuzz
is a cub who is playing one day and tries to get nuts from the top of a
tree.
The nuts keep falling down and hitting him on the top of his
head! Along
with the nuts are some mean bugs! They swarm around him and buzz and
buzz. Oh no! What will Fuzz do? Let's read and find
out!"
Have students read book to themselves or in pairs. When everyone
is
finished, ask students to raise their hands if they remember any words
with the
/u/ sound they read in the book. Spell the words together as you
write
the words on the board. The students will write the words on their own
primary
paper.
9.
For the
assessment I will give each student a worksheet with pairs of pictures
of
objects grouped together. The students will have to look at the pairs
of
objects and write a 'u' on top of the picture that they hear the
phoneme /u/
in. This will demonstrate their understanding of the relationship
between the
grapheme and the phoneme /u/. For individual reading assessment, I will
have
one-on-one time with each student. During this time, I will show them
the
flashcards of the words that we spelled as a class in our letterboxes
and see
if they can read them correctly out of context.
References:
Murray,
B.A.
& Lesniak, T (1999). The Letterbox Lesson: A hands-on
approach for
teaching decoding. The
Long, Lauren.
Fuzz and the Buzz. Phonics Readers.