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Ay! I love pizza too!

Beginning Reading Lesson Design

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 pronunciation. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling a_e. They will learn a meaningful representation (a hungry man saying Ay!), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a_e=/A/.

Materials: Graphic image of a hungry man emoji; cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard letterboxes for modeling and individual letterboxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: a, e, c, l, k, r, t, m, s, p; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: ace, lake, rate, mask, scrape; decodable text Race for Cake, velcro square pieces, sharpie, and assessment worksheet.  

Procedures:

1. Say: In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned how to read short vowel words with a, like cat, and today we are going to learn about long A and the silent e signal that is used to make A say its name, /A/. When I say /A/ I think of a hungry man, or the hungry emoji eating the pizza saying “Ay! I love pizza too!”[show graphic image].

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /A/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /A/ in words, I hear a say its name /A/ and my mouth opens slightly, my face smiles, and I feel the sound in the back of my throat. [Repeat the sound /A/ two times and have the class do it with you two more times.] I’ll show you first: made. I heard a say its name and felt my mouth open, face smile, and the sound come from the back of my throat. There is a long A in made. Now I am going to see if it’s in back. Hmm, I don’t hear it say its name and I don’t feel /A/ in the back of my throat. Now you try. If you hear /A/ say, “Ay! I love pizza too!” If you don’t hear /A/ say “nay dude.” Is it in snake, bake, play, tall, rain, bow? [Have children pretend to take a bite of pizza and say “Ay! I love pizza too!” when they hear a say its name.]

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /A/ that we’ll 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. [Write a_e on the board.] This blank line here 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 snake? “If I see a snake in my yard, I will run away.” Now, to spell snake in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /s/ /n/ /A/ /k/ e. I need 4 boxes. I heard that /A/ just before the /k/ so I’m going to put an a in the third box and the silent e signal outside the last box. The word starts with /s/, that’s easy; I need an s. Now it gets a little tricky so I am going to say it slowly, /s/ /n/ /A/ /k/ e. I think I heard /n/ so I’ll put a n right after the s. Now for the /A/. I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /s/ /n/ /A/ /k/ e.] The missing one is /k/=k.

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for ace. Ace is a kind of suit in a card game, “I have an ace so I won the card game.” What should go in the first box?  [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’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress.] You’ll need three boxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /A/ and don’t forget to put the signal silent e at the end, outside the boxes. Here’s the word: lake; I want to swim in the lake; lake [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell in my letterboxes on the board: l – a – k – e and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: rate; I need to rate my toys from best to worst. [Have volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word.]  Next word. Listen to see if this word has /A/ in it before you spell it: mask; I put on a mask at the ball to hide my face. Did you need a silent e? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear a say its name. We spell it with our short vowel a. [volunteer spell it on the front board.] Now let’s try 4 phonemes: stake; the stake has to go in the ground to hold down our tent, stake. One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: scrape; If I fall off my bike and scrape my arm, I will need a band-aid. Remember to stretch it out to get this tough word.

5. Say: Now I’m going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I’d read a tough word. [Display poster with scrape on the top and model reading the word.] First, I see there is a silent e on the end; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s the vowel a. It must say /A/. I’m going to use a cover-up critter to get the first part. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] /s/ /c/=/sc/ + /r/=/scr/. Now I’m going to blend that with /A/=/scrA/. Now all I need is the end, /p/=/scrAp/. Scrape; that’s it. Now it is your turn, everyone together. [Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /A/: a_e. Now we are going to read a book called Race for Cake. This is the story of a boy named Ben and a girl named Jess. Their mom is baking a cake. Jess wants to race Ben to the gate, and that’s just what they do. Their dog Lad joins the race and something happens. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Race for Cake to find out what happens during the race. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while a teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Race for Cake aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

7. Say: That was a funny story. What happened when Lad joined the race? Right, Ben fell and Lad started licking his face. When he called for help his mom came with cake. What happened when she put down the cake to help Ben? Right, Lad jumped up and ate the cake. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /A/=a_e, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. I have three different piles of colored square velcro pieces. On each piece of velcro is a word that has either short /a/=a or long /A/=a_e. On the board there is a chart with two columns. One labeled short a and the other long a. I want you to say each word and velcro that word in the correct column of the chart. [Go around and check students’ progress. Take pictures of each student’s work to assess their comprehension of a_e.

Resources:

Kaylee Mayhew, Ay Man: https://sites.google.com/site/lessondesignsctrd/home/beginning-reading-design

Murray, G. (2004) Race for Cake. Reading Genie: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/bookindex.html

Constructing BR Lesson Design Worksheet: Canvas

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/applications/ 

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