Bob the Lobster

animals

Beginning Reading

Rationale:

To help beginning readers they need to develop skills to decode unfamiliar words. Since short vowels are the hardest of the phonemes to identify we will only focus on one short vowel. This lesson we will focus on o=/o/. The goal of this lesson is to help students recognize o=/o/ in spoken and written words.

Materials:

Primary paper

Pencil

A class set of Doc in the Fog by Educational Insights

Chart with tongue twister

Elkonin letterboxes for the students and the teacher

Letter manipulatives for the students and the teacher

Sentences with the /o/ sound

Procedure:

1. I will introduce the lesson by explaining why it is important to learn that a letter represents a sound. “Today we are going to learn about o=/o/. It is important to learn this so we can recognize this sound in words. We will also make words that have this sound.”

2. Write the letter o on the board. “Has anyone been to the doctor before and he asked you to open your mouth and say /o/ so he can see down your throat?” “Well, let’s open our mouths and say /o/ and pretend the doctor is looking at our throats.” “Now, let’s get out our primary paper and pencil and practice writing the letter o.” “Okay, very good.” “Next, I want you to tell me which word you hear the /o/ sound in: flock or brick? Cat or dog? Fish or blond? Okay, very good work.”

3. “Okay, now let’s try a tongue twister (on chart). “Oliver had an operation in October, and Oscar gave him an octopus.” “Everybody say it 2 times together.” “Now let’s say it again, but stretch the /o/ sound at the beginning of the words.” “Ooooliver had an oooooperation in Oooooctober, and Ooooscar gave him an ooooooctopus.” “Okay, good and this time let’s try it again, but break the /o/ off of the word: “/O/ liver had an /o/ peration in /O/ ctober, and /O/ scar gave him an /o/ cotopus.”

4. Take out letterboxes and demonstrate with the class how to use them to spell words. "Now we are going to spell some words that have the /o/ sound in them. Each box should only have one sound in it. I am going to spell the word “top,” watch closely at what I do. T-o-o-o-o-p. It will help you if you say the word very slowly a few times to yourself. The first sound I hear is /t/ so I will put a t in the first box. Then I hear the /o/ sound that we have been talking about so I will put an o in the next box. Finally I hear the /p / sound so that tells me to put a p in the last box. Now let’s see if you can spell these words with the /o/ sound in them." Have the students use the Elkonin letterboxes to spell the following words: 3 phonemes - rot, pot, rob, hog, nod; 4- slob, flop, spot; 5 - frost. Tell the students how many boxes they need to use for each group of words. "Now let’s practice spelling some words with the /o/ sound. See if you can spell them the same way I spelled top earlier. When you are finished, raise your hand and I will come by and look at your spellings."

5. Pass out to the students copies of Doc in the Fog and let them read in groups. Afterwards, read it again and have students raise their hands when they hear words with /o/. List the words on the board and let them draw their own wizard and write a message telling about it using invented spelling. Display their work.

6. For assessment, I will have some sentences already written out and have each student one at a time come to my desk and read one or more of the sentences for me and I will write down any miscues.

References:

Fidler, Natalie. Rub those eyes...aaa!

http://www.auburn.edu/%7Emurraba/begin/fidlerbr.html

Book: Doc in the Fog.

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