/i/ Icky
Sticky Fingers
Beginning Reading
Emily Mills
Rationale:
Studies show that
explicit
phonics—in which teachers pronounce phonemes in isolation to model how
to sound
out and blend—is more effective than analytic phonic in leading
children to
early reading practice. Research has also shown that the use of
decodable texts
promotes a decoding strategy in beginning readers despite being
somewhat
restricted in their literature value. Learning vowel correspondences is
particularly helpful for beginning readers.
During this lesson,
students will
learn how to spell, blend, and decode the new vowel correspondence,
i=/i/ by
participating in a letterbox lesson and reading a decodable book. Children can learn sight words after a few
quality encounters of decoding a word, so students will go back and
reread
sentences where they have miscued on a word during this lesson.
Materials:
1)
Liz is Six. Educational
Insights. 1990. (one
copy per pair of students)
2) Icky
Sticky short i phoneme picture (off
of the Reading Genie website)
3) Tongue
twister projection (An ill Indian inside the igloo itched.)
4) List
of letterbox words (3---[sit, wag, bill], 4---[skin, glass,
spell,
gift], 5---[twist, spent,
drink])
5) large
letterbox for teacher
6) letterboxes
for each child
7) bag
of letter manipulatives (a, b, d, e, f,
g, i, I, k, l, l, n, p, r, s, s, t, w) for teacher and every child
8) Document
camera
9) Extra
decodable books limited to /a/, /e/, and /i/ correspondences (from a
class set
of Educational Insights Phonics Readers)
10) i=/i/ pseudoword
cards (dit, mip, sig, zick, piff, yink)
Procedures:
1. Introduce
the lesson by reminding students that, "our written language is like a
secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for--the
mouth moves
we make as we say words." (Project the icky sticky phoneme picture up
on
the board). Today, we're going to learn what I tells
us to say when it's all by itself.
2. have
you ever accidentally got goopy glue or jelly on your hands? It feels
icky,
right? Your hands are one big icky sticky mess and you might say,
/iiii/. Well,
the letter i tells us to say /i/ when
its all by itself in a word. Whenever you see I by
itself in a word, say /iii/ and spread your fingers out like
this (model motion) just like you have icky sticky fingers. Let's practice saying /i/ while we do spread
our icky sticky fingers. /iiii/. Good
job! Do you hear /i/ in him or her? Do you hear /i/ in sick
or well? Bit or piece?
3. Good
job. Now, let's try a tongue twister. [Project it unto the board.] I'll
read it
first, then everyone can join in the second time. As you read that icky
sticky
sound, spread your sticky fingers. "An
ill Indian inside the igloo itched." (Point
to the each letter I as it is stretched out). Okay,
now let's say it together, "An iiill IIIndian IIIInside the iiigloo
iiitched." Let's read it together one last time. Ready, go.
4. Tell
students, "Let me show you how to spell the word brick
using my letters and letterbox. I need four boxes for this
word. Hmm, let me stretch it out and see if I hear any letter sounds in
that
word.... brick. Brrriiickkk. Briiiiiickk. I'm
going to try to stretch out each sound I
hear. /b/-/rrrr/,
/iiii/, /k/. Ah! /b/.
I'll put that in my first letterbox. Brrriiiiickkk.
Hmm, I hear that growling dog, /r/ in brick. That means I need an r. (Teacher
puts r in second box). I also heard that icky sticky
sound in brick. Let
me try it again just to be sure. /b/ /rrr/
/iiiiiiiiii/ /k/. Yep, there's
that /i/ sound! That means I is all
by himself. (Places I in third
letterbox). I also heard /k/ at the end of brick.
Hmm… /k/ could be k, but I remember
that c and k can work together when
they're right beside each other to make
the /k/ sound, too. I think I'll put ck down for /k/. (Places the diagraph ck
down in the forth box).
5. Distribute
the materials for the letterbox lesson to each child. Tell children how
many
boxes to use, then call out one word at a time. The teacher will walk
around
the room, monitoring student progress and providing guided assistance
for any
student who needs help. If a child misspells a word, the teacher will
read the
word as it is spelled. (Example, "That says, scan;
we're spelling skin."
Once every student has had time to spell the word, the teacher will
move on the
next word on the list. List of letterbox words: 3--[sit,
wag, bill], 4— [skin,
glass, spell, gift], 5— [twist,
spent, drink].
6. After
the letterbox lesson, put the list of letterbox words unto the board.
The
teacher will model how to read the word twist
aloud. Let me show you how I would read this word (point to twist). Oh there's that icky, sticky letter I all by itself it says /i/!
/t/…/t/ -/w/…./tw/…/tw/-/iiiii/,
/twi/…/twi/-/s/…/twis/…/twis/-/t/…Oh! Twist!
After the teacher models how to read the new correspondence, the class
will
read the list of words aloud together, one word at a time. The teacher
may ask
for volunteers to try to decode a word individually in front of the
class as
well.
7. After
the word list is read, show students Liz
is Six and say: "Liz is a little girl who is having a birthday
party.
Someone gave her a baseball mitt for a present, so he decided to play a
game of
ball with a friend. But her friend is a pig! How in the world will her
pig
friend ever catch the ball? Who is going to win the game? You'll have
to read
to find out!" Pass out Liz is Six books
to pairs of reading students. Tell students that they are reading
buddies. One
buddy will read the first page, the next will read the second, the
other will
read the third, so on and so forth. They are to take turns reading the
book to
each other. If they aren't reading, then they should be good listeners
and talk
about the story after their partner is finished. After the book is read
through
once, students will reread it, this time switching out turns—the
partner who
read the first page will now go second. Students will be asked to
pretend they
went to the party as they are rereading the book and talking before
they turn.
8. Students
will be free to choose a decodable book (with short a,
e, or I correspondences) out of the class library. (Books
will be sorted into bins, and children will know which bins they may
select
from.) Students will whisper-read this familiar book individually.
9. While
students are reading their self-selected decodable books, the teacher
go around
and assess individual students on their ability to decode the i =/i/ pseudowords. (dit, mip, sig, zick,
piff, yink).
Reference:
Angela Simpson. Yuck, It's Icky Sticky.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/simpsonbr.html
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