Ed
the Elephant Went to Fetch the Elk
Beginning
Reading
By: Lauren Keasal
Rationale:
Phonemes
are important for children to be able to recognize in
words because it helps them break up words into sounds and then dictate
those
sounds onto paper. Vowels, such as short e, are sometimes more
difficult
for children to hear. This is because, "Children can feel the
production
of consonants in the mouth; making the sounds stop the air flow"
(Pinnell,
1998, pp. 79) but vowels make it harder to feel the air flow. This
lesson will
help students learn to recognize the short e sound, e=/e/
through
a tongue twister, gesture and a group letter box lesson.
Materials:
(Enough
for each
child=*) Dry Erase Board,
Pencils*, Dry Erase Marker, Letter Manipulatives*(e ,a ,d ,r ,p ,t
(2), k,
s, l, h, p and b), Flash Cards(net,
elk, pan, pet, kept, sled, tent, help, blend, slept), Book: Red Gets Fed* (Cushman,
Shelia. Carson,CA. Education Insights. 1990. Pp.1-9), Tongue Twister Chart (Ed the Elephant
Went to Fetch the Elk), Primary Paper*, Elkonin Boxes*, and Creaky
Door /e/
Worksheets*.
Procedure:
1.
I will start the lesson by writing the letter "e" on the dry
erase board. I will ask: What letter is
this? Do you know what sound this letter makes? Good! "e" makes the
sound /e/,
like an old creaky door eeee (Modeling opening a door while saying the
sound).
Here is an example using the creaky door "e" sound: R-e-e-e-e-d. (Model
the
creaky door opening, stretching the /e/ sound).
2.
Take out the chart with the tongue twister on it. I'll read
it and you make sure to listen for the /e/ sound. "Ed the elephant
went
to fetch the elk". Let's try using the creaky door "e" together
in the tongue twister. Make sure to listen for the /e/sound! "Ed the
elephant
went to fetch the elk". Great! Now let's stretch creaky door "e"
in the tongue twister. Make sure you open the door when you hear the
/e/sound.
"E-e-e-e-d the e-e-e-lephant we-e-e-e-ent to fe-e-e-e-tch the
e-e-elk." Excellent!
3.
To see if the student are able to hear the /e/ sound in various
words, I will ask a series of question and see if they answer correctly.
Do
you hear the creaky door "e", /e/, in : pet or pat? Hand or head?
Lock or ready? Best or last? If any of the students have trouble
with any
of these you can help them by sounding the word out and write them on
the dry
erase board. I will then let the students think of some words they hear
the
creaky door "e", /e/, in. We will sound each of the words out using
the creaky door "e", /e/, and write them on the dry erase
board so we can see the "e" in the word.
4.
Now we will take out primary paper and practice writing the
letter "e". Okay, let's practice writing the letter
"e". First we will write an upper-case "E". Begin at the
hat line and draw straight down to the shoe line. Next draw three
lines, one
along the hat line, on along the belt line and one along the shoe line.
Then we
will write a lower-case "e". Start between the belt and shoe line,
loop up to the belt line and around back down towards the shoe line. We
will
write it together multiple times (about 7, unless they have trouble).
Every one
circle your best upper- and lower- case letters and wait for the
teacher to
come and check your paper off.
5.
Next, use the Elkonin boxes to do a Letter Box Lesson. Give the
letter boxes to each of the students and have them lay out the number
of boxes
you will need them to use. Make sure the students' boxes are laying
completely
flat for them to work on. Also provide the students only the
letters they
will be using in the lesson (if you are suing double sided letters use
the
lower-case side). The letters that they will need are: e, a, n, d,
r, p, t (2),
k, s, l, h, p, and b. First, you the teacher, will model using the
letter
boxes and letters, explaining how to use the boxes in case the child is
not
familiar. Today we are going to use the letter boxes to spell some
words.
Each box stands for a sound you hear in the word. I will show you a
word fist
so that you can see how I do it. My word will be "lept", as in,
"I lept into bed". Now I will model how the Letter Box Lesson
(LBL) works. Let's do another word, how about the word "slept" as
in "I slept in my bed last night". Fist I hear /s/, what letter makes
that sound? So "s" goes in the first letter box because it is the
first sound you hear. Then I hear /l/, what letter makes that sound? So
"l" would go in the next letter box because it is the second sound.
Now I hear /e/ next, what letter is that? Good! "e" is the third sound
we hear so we put it in the third letter box. What is the next sound we
hear?
/p/, good job! So what letter is that? "p", okay so we put that in
the fourth letter box. Now what is the last sound that we hear in
"slept"? /t/, excellent! So what letter goes in the last letter box?
"t" great! Now I want to see if you can do a couple of words by
yourself!
6.
The words I will use are listed by the number of phonemes: 3-(net,
pet, pan (review word)), 4- (kept, sled, tent, help), 5-(blend).
Give the students a sentence using the word they will be spelling
before
they begin each time, and then repeat the word again.
a.
Now I want you to
spell "net" in your letter boxes using your letters. Can someone tell
me how many boxes we need to spell "net"? Good job! We need three
boxes because there are three sounds in the word "net".
b.
Continue with the
letter box lesson asking the children to spell pet, pan (review
word), kept,
sled, tent, help, and blend.
c.
After completion of
spelling the words, write each word on the board having the student
read it out
loud.
d.
The teacher should
continually be monitoring the students' progress by walking around the
room and
looking at what they are doing. If a student has trouble or misspells a
word,
repeat it to them how they spelled it in the boxes, seeing if they can
find
what is wrong and self-correct. If they are still having trouble
with the
word, show them the word in the correct form and then move on to the
next word
in the series and come back later.
7.
Introduce the decodable book: Red Gets Fed. We are going to
read Red Gets Fed. In this book there is a dog named Red and he always
bothers
his owners when they are busy, but he is always hungry. Do you think
they will
feed him? Well, I guess we will have to read to find out! Everyone
will
then break into groups of two and take turns reading the book to each
other.
Ask the students to make sure they open the creaky door when they hear
the /e/
sound in the story.
8.
For an assessment, pass out worksheets for the children to work
on. The worksheet will have six pictures on it of different objects.
The
student will have to circle the word that matches the picture and has a
creaky
door "e" in its name. Such pictures will include an egg, vest,
elephant, jet, lemon and net.
Resources
Pegues,
Jennifer.
"Picky Pig". http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/careybr.html
Col,
Jeananda. Enchanted
Learning: Short E Words. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/alaphabet/matchwordsandpix/shorte/
Murray,
B.A., and
Lesnaik, T. (1999). The Letterbox Lesson: A hands on approach for
teaching
decoding. The Reading Teacher, 52, 644-650.
Pinnell,
G.S. and
Fountas, I. Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the
Reading/Writing Classroom. Portsmouth, NH. Heinemann. 1998. Pp.
79, 306.