Ay, How Are You?
Beginning Reading
Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the long vowel
correspondence a_e=/A/.
In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the
spellings that map word pronunciations.
In this lesson, children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words
containing spelling a_e.
First, they will learn a meaningful representation (man saying Ay!).
Second, they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a
Letterbox lesson. Third, they will read a decodable book that focuses on the
correspondence a_e=/A/.
Materials: Graphic image of a man saying Ay!; Cover-up critter
(popsicle stick with eyes); Whiteboard or smart board Elkonin boxes for
modeling; Individual Elkonin boxes for each student; Letter manipulative for
each child; Magnetic or smart board letters for teacher: a, c, d, e, g, h, j, k,
p, r, s, t; List of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: ape, sat,
take, cape, shade, rack, stage, scrape; Decodable text:
Babe and Jane; poster with brave;
Assessment worksheet
Procedures:
1. Say: We have already covered short a.
Who can tell me what short a sounds like?
Great! Who can give me an
example word? Awesome!! Who can
give me another example word? Great
job!!
2. Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells
us how to pronounce the words. We
have already learned to read short vowel words like /a/ in cat and past.
Today we are going to learn about long A.
For long A, the silent e
signal is used to make the A say its name /A/.
When I say /A/ I think of a
little cartoon saying "Ay! How are you today (show graphic image)?"
3. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of
/A/, we need to listen for
/A/ in some words.
When I listen for /A/ in
words, I hear a say its name
/A/ and my mouth opens, my jaw drops,
and my tongue does not move (Make vocal gesture for
/A/).
I will show you first: make.
I heard the a say its name and
I felt my jaw drop and my tongue stay.
There is a long A in make.
Now I am going to see if /A/ is in
mask. Hmm, I did not hear
a say its name in mask and my jaw did
not drop like it does with /A/.
Now you try. If you hear
/A/ say "Ay, how are you?"
If you do not hear /A/ say,
"That is not it." Is
/A/ in at, tape, bid, rain, lane, and
dog? [I will have the children touch their jaw when they feel
/A/ say its name.]
4. Say: Now let's look at the spelling of
/A/ that we will learn today.
One way to spell /A/ is with the
letter a and a signal
e at the end of the word to tell me
to say A's name. [I will write a_e
on the board.] This blank line means there is a consonant after
a, and at the end of the word there
is a little silent e signal.
What if I want to spell the word brake?
"The firefighter is a very brave person."
Brave means courageous. To
spell brave in letterboxes, I first need to know how many phonemes I have in the
word. I am going to stretch out
brave and count the phonemes: /b/ /r/ /a/
/v/. I need 4 boxes.
I heard that /A/ just before
the /v/ so I am going to put an
a in the 2nd box.
I am going to put the silent e
signal outside of the last box. The
word starts with /b/, that is easy; I
need a b.
I think I hear a growling r
after the b. I have one empty box
now. [I will point to letters in
the boxes while stretching out the word:
/b/ /r/ /a/ /v/.] The missing phoneme is
/v/=v.
|
b |
r |
a |
v |
5. Say: Now I am going to have you spell
some words in letterboxes. You will
start out with two boxes for
ape.
An ape is a kind of monkey.
"The ape had some yellow bananas."
What should go into the first box?
[I will respond to children's answers.]
What goes in the second box?
What about silent e? Did you remember
to put it outside the boxes? I will
check your spelling while I walk around the room. [I will be observing progress
while walking around.] You will
need three letterboxes for the next word.
First, listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box.
Second, listen for the /A/.
Third, do not forget to put the silent
e outside the boxes at the end of the
word. Here is the word:
take. "I will take the hat off my dad's head;
take." [I will allow the children
time to spell the word.] Time to
check your work. Watch how I spell
the word in my letterboxes: t-a-k-e.
Did you spell the word the same way?
Try another word that needs three boxes:
cape. "The superhero had an
awesome cape: cape." [I will have a
volunteer spell the word in the letterboxes up front for the children to check
their spelling of the word. I will
also be repeating this step for each new word.]
Here comes the next word.
Listen to see if this word has /A/
before spelling it in the letterboxes. The word is
rack. "The rack is high off
of the ground: rack."
Did you need a silent e?
Why not? Right, because we
do not hear a say its name.
We spell rack with our short
vowel a.
[I will have a volunteer spell past in front of the class.]
Did you remember to spell /k/ with
ck? Now I want everybody to try
4 phonemes:
stage. "The stage is in the very
front of the room; stage."
One more word and we are done with spelling.
The last word will need five boxes:
scrape. The scrape on my
knee is very big; scrape. Remember to
stretch the word out to get this tough word.
6. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you have spelled.
First I will show you how I would read a tough word. [I will display a
poster with brave on the top and model reading the word.]
First I see the word brave has a silent
e on the end and that is my signal
that the vowel will say its name.
There is the vowel a.
It must say /A/.
I am going to use a cover-up critter to get the first part.
[I will uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel.
Then, I will blend with the vowel.]
/b/ /r/ = /br/. Now I am going to blend /br/ with /A/ which makes /brA/.
Now all I need is the end which is /v/.
All of the blending together makes /brAv/.
Brave is the word.
Now it is your turn.
Everyone is going together. [I will
have the children read words in unison.
Afterwards, I will call on individuals to read one word on the list until
everyone has had a turn.]
7. Say: Everybody has done such a great job on reading words with our new
spelling for /A/=a_e. Now we are
going to read a book called Babe and Jane.
This story is about a lion named Babe who stays in a cage. Babe is
REALLLLYYY BIG but is very nice.
Jane goes in his cage. Babe naps
and naps. Jane has to wake him but
what ways can she wake him?!?! We are going to read in partners to find out how
Jane wakes Babe. [The children will
be given partners and will take turns reading alternate pages while the teacher
walks around the room monitoring progress.
After all of the groups have finished, the class will reread the story
aloud together and will stop between page turns to discuss the plot.]
8. Say: This story was a fun one.
What way did Jane wake Babe? Right,
she called his name. Before we
finish with our lesson, I want to see how everybody can solve a reading problem.
On this worksheet, we have some words that have short a and some words
that have long A. Your job is to
look at each word and decide if the a
is short or long. If you decide
that the word has a short a, you will color the space gray.
If you decide that the word has a long a, you will color the space blue.
[I will collect the worksheets after everybody has finished evaluating
individual child progress.]
Resources:
Waldrum, Julia: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/waldrumbr.htm
Assessment Worksheet:
http://free-phonics-worksheets.com/html/phonics_worksheet_v1-36.html
Decodable Text: Jane and Babe by
Shelia Cushman and Rona Kornblum (1990)