Rationale: Phonemic awareness is a huge predictor of a
child’s reading success, so as teachers it is important to teach and
assess student’s phoneme awareness. Understanding the sound a phoneme
makes in a word will help them eventually learn to read the word. Short
vowels can be tough because many times children want to say the long
vowel sound because of the vowel name. In this lesson, phonemic
awareness is taught by using a visual model (putting our
hands on our cheeks and saying , "/a/" like we're scared), saying
a fun tongue twister with our focused phoneme a=/a/, and modeling
how to find /a/ in a word.
Materials:
“The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat,” by Nurit Karlin
Laminated blank construction paper cards for the
class
Lined paper and pencils for the class
Picture of Home Alone’s Kevin McAlister for our
/a/ visualization
Big sheet of paper with tongue twister, “Andrew
and Alice asked if Annie's active animals were angry” written on it
Sticky tack
Big, laminated picture of a rug
Dry erase marker
Dry erase board
Sheets with a picture of a rat, cat, witch, and
mat in a living room
Procedure:
- Begin to discuss how we
talk, read, and write, and how it is a big code and how we can all
figure out the code and be good readers and writers. “Today, we’re
going to talk about the letter ‘a’ and when it says /a/.”
- “Sometimes when something
scares me, I scream or squeal. Can someone quietly show me how they
might act if something scared them?” Compliment their scary act then
show the Home Alone /a/ face. “I say /a/ *putting hands on face* when I
get scared. Can you all do this with me in your inside voices?”
- “I’m going to read a
funny sentence called a tongue twister. Andrew and Alice asked if
Annie's active animals were angry. Now I want you to say it with me a
few times. Now let’s say it again, slowly, and stretch out the /a/
sounds and make our scared faces.”
- Have the class get out
their pencils and primary paper. “Class, you’ve done a great job
reading that long sentence with me. Now we’re going to write a on our
sheets of paper. Watch how I write my a’s. I start at the middle line,
or the fence. Remember, we help ourselves with this paper by saying
that the top line is the rooftop, the middle line is the fence, and the
bottom line is the sidewalk. I start at the fence, and draw a curve, a
c, down to the sidewalk. Next, I go back to the fence, and draw a
straight line from the fence to the sidewalk, and connect the ends of
my little c. Practice writing your a’s on your paper.”
- “Now I’m going to find
/a/ in the word crash. I’ll sound the word out very slowly.
Cccccccc, rrrrrrrrrrr, /a/, oh! There’s our /a/ sound, like when we’re
scared. Ccccc, rrrr, /a/, shhh. Crash.”
- Call on the students and
ask them if they hear /a/ in: ban or bun? Rat or rot? Chin or champ?
Grass or green? Dish or dash? Now say words and have the students
already have their construction paper cards. “I want you to hold up
your card if you hear a word with our /a/ sound. Sad; brass; can; grin;
won; hands; last; dusk; name; grand.”
- “The Fat Cat Sat on
the Mat by Mr. Karlin is about a cat who always sits on a mat. His
friends, a rat and a witch, cannot make him get up and do anything, and
it really frustrates them. The cat just does not care. We’re going to
read The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat to find out of the cat ever gets up for
the rat or the witch.”
- After the story is read,
show them the drawn rug or mat – have it stuck to the wall or somewhere
where everyone can see. Have the students write on primary paper what
they like to do on lazy days like our cat’s lazy day in the story using
invented spellings.
- Have a sheet with a
picture of a cat, mat, rat, and witch in a living room. Have other
things in the living room too. Tell the students to circle the objects
in the picture that have the /a/ sound, and to write them on their
primary paper.
References:
Amanda Cummings. Grandpa Ed.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/cummingsel.html
Karlin, N. The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat. An I Can Read Book
Series. Harper Collins. New
York:
1996.
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