Beginning Reading Lesson:

Hey, let’s go to outer space!

 

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

 

 

 

Rationale: In this lesson children will learn the long vowel correspondence a_e = /A/. In order to read at a beginning reading level students will need to be able to recognize the phoneme /A/ which corresponds with the grapheme a_e. In order to learn the phoneme students will need to recognize and read words that contain this grapheme. In order to do this they will see the meaningful representation that says, “Hey, let’s go to outer space!”. We will complete a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book to learn the grapheme a_e = /A/.

Materials: Graphic of a planet in outer space, individual whiteboards for students, poster with the spelling words listed: space, race, date, cake, late, place, chase, boxes (for the letter box lesson, each student will have their own), drawn out boxes on a whiteboard for modeling, dry erase markers (each student will have their own), plastic letters (for lbl) à a, c, e, f, h, k, p, r, s, t. decodable text: Jane and Babe, a list of the possible answer choices written on another poster for the assessment at the end of the lesson.

Procedures:

1. Say: Okay class today we will be learning how to recognize a new sound in written words. We learned that when a stands alone it says /a/, right? An example of this is that a says /a/ in apple and Adam, but today we are going to learn that a_e says /A/. So a will actually be saying it’s own name in long /A/. A has to have a helper in order to say it’s own name and that is the silent e. So one thing I love is outer space, and that helps me to remember that a_e says /a/, so “Hey, let’s go to outer space!”

2. Say: We need to practice saying /A/ instead of /a/ like we normally see a, so let’s practice saying different words with /A/ in them. When I say a word I want you to listen and tell me if you hear long /A/ or short /a/. Watch my mouth when I say these words, when I say long A, my mouth likes long and tall, but when I say short a, my mouth looks wide from side to side (demonstrate the differences in what mouth would look like with /a/ and /A/). Okay, “space”. Right there is a long A in space. What about in “Nasa”? There’s not a long a in nasa à that’s a short a, good job identifying the short a sound. Is it in cage, zoo, play, pal, Jane? (students will make the long A shape with their mouth if they hear the long A).

3. Say: Next we are going to put our skills to the test and practice spelling different words with long A. First I am going to show you how we can spell different words using a_e. (demonstrate this on the white board). When you see a space between a and e that means another letter, that has to be a consonant goes there. At the end of the word there is a silent e. When I say the phrase, “Let’s race to the lake,” we will need to use the long vowel /A/ twice. In order to spell this phoneme we will use a_e. We are going to focus on spelling the word lake. In order to do this we need to know how many phonemes are in the word, so we will sound out the word by saying /l/, /A/, /k/. I am going to need three boxes. The /A/ was in the middle of the word so we will put the a in the second letterbox. Next, we will look for the letter that makes the sound /l/ and place it in the first letterbox, which is an l. Last we need to look for the letter that makes the /k/ sound in the word. In this word it is k. We said we have one special kind of letter in this word, does anyone remember what that is? Right, a silent e. so we are going to place the silent e on the outside of the letterboxes.

4. Say: Now that we had time to practice spelling different words together, I want you to practice spelling different words on your own. First all you will need is 3 letterboxes. We are going to practice writing race first. This is the word we said in the first sentence, “Let’s race to the lake”, but before we practiced spelling lake. So now we are going to make sure we can spell all the words in the sentence. What letter should go in the first letter box? I hear the sound /r/ like a race car-rrrrrrrr. Next we need to figure out what letter will go in the middle of the word if we are saying /A/, that’s right it’s an a. After that we will look at the next letter, this one is kind of tricky but it’s a c. When e comes after c, the letters say /s/. We talked about one letter that doesn’t fit in a letter box, what would that be? It’s a silent e. Now I will look to see if your letter boxes spell the right word. (I will walk around the room and make sure that everyone’s letter boxes are correct. We are going to practice another word with the phoneme a_e. I want you to spell lane, be sure to ride your bike in the correct lane; lane. Students will practice spelling the word in their letterboxes, and then I will walk around and observe their work. After this I will model how to spell the word using the letter boxes that are drawn out on the board. It is spelled l-a-n-e. Make sure that you put the silent e on the outside of your letter boxes. Now we are going to spell some new words, but I am going to need a volunteer from the classroom. (ask one of the students who raised their hands to demonstrate spelling the word). Okay I want you to spell the word chase. This is a little bit of a challenge word because you have to use the letters c and h to say /ch/. Lane is going to chase her friend in the game; chase. (Have different students demonstrate spelling different words) Let’s make sure that we don’t confuse /A/ with other vowel sounds. Do you hear long a in these words; snack, mat, pat? (children will respond no). Okay we are all going to practice spelling the word snack. This word has 4 phonemes, /s/ /n/ /a/ /ck/, but no silent e because it does not say the long vowel /A/. Make sure that you used c and k to make the sound /ck/ at the end of the word snack. Lastly, I want everyone to spell the word place. Can anyone tell me how many letter boxes you will need to spell this word? (wait for students to respond, “4”). Good job, now I want you to spell this word in your letterboxes!

5. Say: Alright, now we are going to get to practice our skills in reading a_e = /A/ and read a story called Jane and Babe. Jane works at the zoo and she is best friends with the lion named Babe. Babe is not like a wild animal he is kind and tame, so Jane can enter into his cage to play with him. When Jane enters the cage Babe falls asleep. Now she has to figure out how to wake Babe up to get him to play with her. Let’s read to find out if Jane can wake Babe up, so that they can play together.

6. Say: Man, that was a pretty awesome story! What did Jane and Babe do once Babe was awake? They played and ran around. What do you call it when you and your friend compete to see who can run the fastest? Correct, a race! Who won the race in the story we read? Right, Babe won the race. That makes sense, he is a much bigger and stronger lion. Okay I want you all to practice spelling some words with a_e. I’m going to ask you a question from the story and you are going to write what you think the correct a_e word will answer the question.

Activity (will not be spoken):

I will have a list of questions to read off to the students, they will write what they think is the correct answer on their individual white boards and then hold them up in the air. Once everyone has an answer written and is holding it in the air, I will read the correct answer and they will either erase the answer they got wrong and write the correct answer or erase their answer and prepare for the next question, if they got the question right.

Resources:

Phonics Readers. Jane and Babe.: file:///Users/emmaayers/Downloads/Jane%20and%20Babe%20(1).pdf

 

Murray, G. Oh, I didn’t know! file:///Users/emmaayers/Downloads/BeginningReadingSample%20(2).pdf