Sweet Feet

Materials:  Poster with tongue twister ãSweet feet meet on the street every week.ä, Elkonian letterboxes and the letters : b,e,e,s,f,t,k,p,l,c,r,t for each child, Lee and the Team (Educational Insights)

Procedures:
1. Introduce the lesson by explaining that our written language is a secret code.  The hard part is learning the sounds that each letter(s) make.  Today we are going to work on the mouth move/E/. There are several ways to write /E/ but today we are going to concentrate on ee.
2. I will tell the children that when there are two eâs together they make one sound and it is /E/.  It says /E/ like when you ride a roller coaster and say "whee".
3. Letâs try a tongue twister: Sweet feet meet on the street every week.  Everybody say it three times together.  Now say it again but stretch out the /E/ sound:  Sweeeet feeeet meeeet on the streeeet every weeeek.  Very good!
4. Ask students some questions.  Do you hear the /E/ sound in speed or stop?  Tweet or bark?  Bee or wasp?  Now letâs see if you can spot the mouth move /E/ in some words.  If you hear the /E/ sound I want you to clap your hands.  If you donât say no.  Sweet, feet, meet, on, the, street, every, week.
5. Now we are going to use letterboxes to spell some words.  Since ãeeä only makes one sound then we will put them in the same letterbox.  Letâs try the first one together.  You only need two letterboxes for this word.  Letâs spell the word bee.   The first sound is /b/ so that goes in the first letterbox.  Since the /ee/ only makes one sound it will go in the same letter box.  Now letâs do another with only two letterboxes.  Make bee say see.  Letâs make the boxes have three squares and spell the word feet.  Now try keep.  Letâs give it four squares and spell fleet, now try creek.  Our last word will have five boxes.  Make the word street.  Very good!
6. Now I will write some words on the board and I want you to read them to me.  List bee, see, feet, keep, fleet, creek, street.
7. Sing the Farmer in the Dell but change the words to the following:What sound is in the mid-dle?  What sound is in the mid-dle?  Hi-ho the der-ri-o, What sound is in the mid-dle?  Say speed, greet and sheep.  Everyone repeats each word.  /E/ is in the mid-dle. /E/ is in the mid-dle. Hi-ho the der-ri-o, /E/ is in the mid-dle.  Repeat using other ee words used today.
8. Give each child a copy of Lee and the Team to read.  Say, can Lee get his team to run by making a deal with the bee?
9. Assess students by walking around and listening to them read as they read Lee and the Team.

References:  Eldredge, J. Lloyd. (1995).  Developing Phonemic Awareness.  Teaching Decoding in the Holistic Classrooms. Pp. 59-61
Murray, Bruce.  http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/insights/millsbr.html

Link back to "Breakthroughs"
Questions?  E-mail me.