Eh?...
Did you say Elephant?
Beginning Reader Design
Rationale:
In order to become better readers and decoders, children need to
understand that letters represent vocal gestures or phonemes. In order
to develop an understanding of words and letters, children need to
learn correspondences. This lesson will help students identify the
correspondence e=/e/ (short e). The lesson will develop the
student's awareness of e=/e/, by giving them instruction and
practice on how to form the short e sound, as well as practice reading
decodable text containing the short e sound. The students will receive
instruction in the decoding of short e words, as well as practicing
spelling the words themselves.
Materials:
Dry Erase Board
Letter Manipulatives (e s t f l d r m n p b g h t)
Book: Red Gets Fed
Tongue
Twister Chart (Everybody
saw Eddie and the Eskimo enter the elevator on the elephant) written on board
Primary Paper
Pencils
Elkonin Boxes
Short e Worksheets (attached)
Procedure:
1.Today
we are going to learn more about the letter e and one of the sounds
this letter can make. Sometime e makes the sound
/e/. We read a lot of words everyday that have the /e/ sound in
them. It reminds me of the sounds my grandmother makes when she can't
hear. She cups her hand around her ear and says 'eh?' Let's try making
that sound together." Pantomime gesture and show the picture of
grandma. Suggest that the group tries the gesture and sound together as
well.
2.Before we can learn how to recognize the letter e and pronounce it we first need to work on writing it. Everybody get out your white boards and lets write it together [go ahead and put primary lines on the board and demonstrate writing]. Everybody follow me and listen to what I say. 'To make a little e, you should draw a short horizontal line in the center of the space below the fence, start from the left to the right, up to touch the fence, then around and up like you are making a little c.'
3.We are going to learn a new tongue
twister [point to the sentence on the board] everyone lets read this
together, 'Everybody saw Eddie and the Eskimo enter the elevator on the
elephant.'
Now
I want you to practice recognizing the/e/ sound in the tongue twister.
Every time you hear /e/ I want you to cup your hand behind your ear
just like we did earlier. Are we ready? [Read at a slow pace allowing
the student to have time to put their hands behind their
ears.]'Everybody saw Eddie and the Eskimo enter the elevator on the
elephant.' Great job!
4.Now, we
are going to learn to spell several words with the /e/ phoneme with the
help of our letter boxes. [Every student needs Elkonin Letter Boxes and
letter tiles of the following letters: e
s t f l d r m n p b g h t.] Watch me as I show you how to put
each phoneme in the word into separate boxes. [Use an overhead
projector or draw the boxes on the board and use large magnetic letters
so that all students can see the modeling.] My word has four
phonemes (sounds) so I have four boxes. My word is fresh. I will sound
it out for us "f-f-r-e-e-sh," I hear /f/ at the very beginning so I
know the first letter is f so I'm going to put it in the first
letterbox. Next I hear the /r/ sound, so I will put and r in the second
letterbox. That cupped ear 'Ehhh' is right there in the middle so I
know to put an e in the third box. The /sh/ makes one mouth move so it
is one phoneme and I will put /sh/ in the first box. That cupped ear
'Ehhh' is right there in the middle, put I hear a roaring r in
front of it in my fourth box as sh. Any questions? Good. Now I am going
to say a few words and I want each of you to stretch them out and find
all of the phonemes in it. Give students 5-7 words to practice:
4 phonemes: fled, melt, shred
5 phonemes: trend, slept, blend, strength
* Make sure to walk around the room to check for accuracy and
understanding. If there are problems with spelling, read to word that
they spelled to them even if it is incorrect; have them retry and if
they don't
spell it correctly the second time give them the answer. Always
return to the words they didn't get at the end for more practice. Make
sure that students read words after they are done spelling all of the
words. If they cannot decode a word, show them how to do it with
the letters, without the letterboxes.
5.We are going to read
Red Gets Fed. In this book there is a dog named Red and he always
bothers his owners for food. He will bother one of his owners for food,
get it, and then move on the next owner. Do you think he will get away
with convincing his owners that he needs more food? 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 cup their hand over their ears when they
hear the /e/ sound in the story].
6.[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 that has /e/ in its name. Such
pictures will include a vest, web, leg, pen, nest, hen, jet, lemon
and a net.
References
Murray,
Bruce.
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/twisters.html
Ebaugh,
Jayme. Creaky door e.
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/constr/ebaughbr.html
Murray,
Bruce. Teaching Letter Recognition
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/letters.html
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.
Red Gets Fed. Carson, CA. Educational Insights. 1990. Pp.1-9.
Worksheet created with inspiration from:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/alphabet/mcwords/shorte/