Yay for /A/!
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Rationale: This lesson will teach children about the long vowel correspondence a_e = /A/. Lessons, such as this one, that teach phoneme awareness are helpful in guiding students to reading success because mastery of these correspondences will lead to decoding mastery. In this lesson, students will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the a_e spelling. Students will learn a meaningful representation, spell and read words containing the correspondence in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a_e = /A/.
Materials: Graphic image of cheerleader; letterboxes for teacher to use on overhead projector; set of letterboxes for each child; sets of letter tiles for teacher and each child- letters: a, e, b, s, f, c, p, l, r, n; list of reading words on poster to display to the class: Abe, safe, cape, clap, plane, scrape; class set of Jane and Babe and larger copy of Jane and Babe for read-aloud; class set of assessment worksheet.
Procedures: 1. Say: If we want to become super readers, we have to learn the special code that tells how to pronounce words, so that then we can read them! We have learned our short vowels, now we are going to learn about a new kind of vowel called long vowels. Long vowels say their names, like the one we are learning today: /A/. Today we will learn about words that have an a in them and an e at the end, and the e at the end of the word makes the a say its name! I like the think of the long A sound by thinking of a cheerleader whose team just won the game, so she cheers loud and excited: “YAY!” [Show graphic].
2. Say: The first thing we need to do is be able to recognize the /A/ sound in words. When I listen for /A/ in words, I hear a say its name and I feel my mouth open up into a tiny smile like this [Make vocal gesture for /A/]. I’ll show you: bake. I heard a say its name and my mouth curved up a little. The word bake does have a long A. Let’s see if there’s a long A in math. Well, I did not hear a say its name and my mouth was a little bigger that time. Now you try! If you hear /A/ say, “yay”. If you don’t hear /A/, keep very quiet. Do you hear /A/ in tail, toe, lake, pond, rain, sun?
3. Say: Now we will look at the spelling of words with a_e = /A/. Today we will only look at words that have the e at the end to make the a say its name, even though that’s not the only way to know that words have /A/ in them. [Write a_e on the board.] The blank line here means that there is at least one consonant in between the a and the e. The e in these words tell the a to say its name, and does not say anything for itself. What if I want to spell the word crate? “I had to put my puppy in his crate.” Crate is just another word for cage. To spell crate in letterboxes, I have to first stretch out the word to figure out how many phonemes are in it. Stretch out the word and count with me: /c/ /r/ /A/ /t/. I need four boxes. I hear the a say its name right before the /t/ so I know to put the t in the last box and the a right before that. Crate starts with /c/, so c goes in the first box, and what comes after c? [Sound out crate again]. I heard the growling /r/ after /c/, so I know I need an r. Very good! And last but not least, that silent e goes right outside of our last box. It goes outside of the boxes because it doesn’t make any sounds.
4. Say: Now, you get to spell some words in letter boxes! You’ll start with an easy one: Abe, which is a name. President Abraham Lincoln’s nickname was Abe. What goes in the first box? [Listen for children’s’ answers.] How about the second box? And where does our silent e go? I will check your spelling. For the next word, you’ll need three letterboxes. Listen for the beginning sound which will go in the first box, then for the /A/ and the ending sound. The next word is safe. The baseball player was declared safe when he crossed home plate. [Give time for children to spell.] Let’s check your work. Watch how I spell safe in my letterboxes: s – a – f – e and see if you spelled it like I did. Let’s try another: cape; Superman’s suit has a cape on the back. [Allow a volunteer to spell using the letterboxes of the front board for children to check their work. Repeat for each new word.] Next word! Listen to see if it has /A/ in it before you try to spell: clap; I like for the class to clap when someone does a good job. Did you need a silent e? Right, because we don’t hear the a say its name. We spell clap with our short a vowel. [Volunteer spells it on the board/projector.] Good job! Now let’s add one more phoneme, which means one more letterbox! Plane, I rode a plane to get to Orlando. One last word, and this one needs five boxes: scrape. I tripped on the playground and got a scrape on my knee. This word is harder than the others, so be sure to stretch it out so you hear all of the phonemes.
5. Say: Now, you get to read all of the words that you just spelled. First, I’ll show you have I would read a harder word. [Show poster with plate on the board and model reading the word.] First, I know that there is a silent e on the end, which means that the a has to say its name. I will use a cover-up to get the first part of the word. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel and ending phoneme.] /p//l/ = /pl/. Now I’ll blend /pl/ with that /A/. /pl/ + /A/ = /plA/, then add the end. /plA/ = /t/ = /plAt/. Plate, that’s the word! Now it’s your turn! First, everyone read together and then everyone will have a chance to read a word by themselves. [Children will read words in unison. Then, call on individual students to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]
6. Say; Great job on reading the words, class! You have almost mastered a_e words that say /A/. Now we are going to read a book called Jane and Babe. This book is about a woman named Jane who works at the zoo. Jane is visiting all of the animals, and gets into the lion’s cage. The lion’s name is Babe. What will happen when Jane and the big, scary lion meet? To find out, I need everyone to pair up and take turns reading pages of Jane and Babe. [Children pair up and read alternate pages of the book. Teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After the individual reading, the class will read the book together, stopping after each page to discuss the plot.]
7. Say: What a fun story! What happened when Jane and Babe were in the cage together? Right, Jane cleaned and the two friends got to play together! What would you do if you were in a cage with a lion? [Allow children to share quickly.] Before we finish up our lesson on a_e = /A/, I want to see how all of you do working by yourselves with these words. [Hand out worksheets to class.] First, read the big word in each row and circle the picture that the word represents. Then, write the word for yourself! Reread what you write to make sure what you read makes sense. [Circulate around room to make sure students are working correcting.] [When everyone is finished, collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
Resources:
Jane and Babe.
Beginning Reading Lesson
