“Aaaa! I’m Scared!” Says Short A
Rationale:
This lesson introduces beginning reading students to vowel correspondences
beginning with short a, a=/a/. In order for students to read, they must learn
and understand vowel correspondences. In this lesson children will learn to
recognize, spell, and read words containing the short vowel correspondence,
a=/a/. They will learn how to use a meaningful gesture (throw arms up like a
scared child yelling “Aaaa!”) and a tongue twister “Alice screamed “Aaaa!” as
the alligator smacked and snapped”, spell and read words containing this
spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the
correspondence
a=/a/.
Materials:
Graphic
image of child screaming, tongue tickler: "Alice screamed “Aaaa!” as the
alligator smacked and snapped.", elkonin boxes, letter manipulatives (a,b,c,d,g,k,l,m,n,p,r,s,t),
spelling words on cards (ad, bag, cat, crab, snag, pant, clap, crash, blast),
Nat the Cat, pencils, assessment worksheet (link below), ELMO
Procedure:
1.Introduce Vowel with Meaningful Gesture. Say:
In order to become great readers, we need to learn and understand vowels. We see
vowels when we s
ee
a,e,i,o, or u. They are special because they make a few different sounds. When
we pronounce words, we give a lot of importance to the vowels. Today we are
going to learn about the vowel short a, a=/a/. Short a says /a/. Say it with me,
/a/. When I say /a/, I think of someone screaming with their hands up like they
just got scared! “Aaaa!”. (Show Graphic Image) Let’s all pretend we just saw
something scary and scream (quietly) with our hands up. “Aaaa!” What is your
mouth doing when you say /a/? That’s right, we just hold it open and let our
voices do the work!
2. Tongue Tickler. Say: We’re going to use this tongue tickler to practice /a/. When I say /a/, my mouth is open and my tongue stays on
the bottom of my mouth and we let our voices do the work (Show the tongue tickler to the students.) I want you to listen to me first, “Alice screamed “Aaaa!” as the alligator smacked and snapped”. Now, let’s practice together (repeat with students two times) Do you
hear the /a/ sound? I hear /a/ at the beginning of Alice. Throw your hands up in the air like you are scared when you hear the /a/ in these
words: as, alligator, smacked, snapped. Great job! I saw a lot of scared hands going up! We are going to say the tongue tickler again, but
this time we are going to stretch out the /a/ sound. “Aaaaalice screamed “Aaaa!”
aaaas the aaaalligator smaaaacked and snaaaaapped”.
3. Modeling a Letterbox Lesson with ELMO Say: Now we are going to practice spelling words with the /a/ sound. If I want to spell the
word “ad”, I need to know how many phonemes (letter sounds) I hear in the word so I stretch it out and count with my fingers, /a/ /d/,
“ad”. I counted two, so I will need to use two boxes. I heard /a/ at the beginning, so I am going to put a in the first box. Next, I heard /d/.
I am going to put that in the second box. Now that I have a letter in each box, I am going to move the letters off the boxes and put them
together
so I can read the word. I am going to sound out each letter and then blend them
together. /a/ /d/ “aaaad”.
4. Student LBL Spelling Say: Now its your turn to spell some words in
letterboxes. You’ll start with the word “bag”. How many boxes do we need for
“bag”. /b//a//g/. Three, that's right. What should go in the first box? second?
third? I’ll check your spelling and help you while I walk around the room. (Have
children also spell the words: cat, crab, snag, pant, clap, crash, blast).
5. Student LBL Readings Say: Now I want you to use the words you spelled
and practice reading them to me. I will come around the room. (Afterwards, have
the students read all the words together as a class from the word cards using
the ELMO.)
6. Decodable Book Reading Say: You’ve done a great
job spelling reading words with a = /a/. Now we are going to read a book called
Nat the Cat. This story is about a fat black cat named Nat. Nat is a happy cat,
especially when he has a full belly. One day he finishes all the milk in his
bowl, but he is unhappy because he is still hungry. Nat goes looking for some
more to eat. Do you ever think he will find more food and have a full belly?
Lets read to find out what happens. (Have all the students pair up to take turns
reading the book. Walk around the room and monitor the students’ progress. After
everyone finishes reading, read through the book as a class. Discuss the plot of
the story as you read the book as a class.)
7.
Assessment:
Say: Now that you have learned the short a vowel, you are going to practice
working with it on this worksheet. You have a picture for each word, and you
will have to choose the letters you need to make the word. You will choose the
letters you need and connect them by drawing a line. Then you will practice
writing the short a word.
[Collect worksheets to evaluate individual student’s progress].
References:
Anna Day,
“Ahhh!”
Screams the Boy on the Rollercoaster
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/dayabr.html
Nicole Lawyer,
Aaaaa . . . There’s a Spider!
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/lawyernbr.htm
Murray, Bruce. Making Sight Words: Teaching Sight Words from Phoneme Awareness
to Fluency. 1st ed. Ronkonkoma, NY: Linus Publications, 2012. 380. Print.
Nat the Cat by Cindy Garrett
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/teacherbooks.html
Assessment Worksheet. http://www.funfonix.com/book1/ffonix_book1_2.gif
