Aaaa! That’s scary!
Beginning Reading
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Rationale: This lesson will teach children about the short vowel correspondence a=/a/. In order to be able to read, children must learn correspondences so they can decode words. In this lesson, children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the a=/a/ correspondence. They will learn a meaningful representation (we say “Aaaa” when we are scared”), they will spell and read words containing the a=/a/ correspondence in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that follows a=/a/.
Materials: Graphic image of a scared kid; tongue tickler on chart, cover-up critter, whiteboard, letterboxes for each student, letter manipulatives for each student and magnetic letters for teacher: a, b, c, d, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t; list of spelling words displayed on poster board or whiteboard to read: cat, at, pan, bad, mask, trap, plant, decodable text: Lad and His Pals, and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
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Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the sounds that letters make so we can know how to pronounce words. Every letter has its own sound and our mouths move in a different way to make those sounds. Today we are going to learn about the letter a and the sound that it makes, /a/. When I say /a/, I think of something that scares me. When we get scared, we scream “Aaaa!”.
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Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /a/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I say /a/, my mouth opens and my tongue stays on the bottom of my mouth like this. [Make vocal gesture for /a/.] First, I’ll show you: bad. I heard a and felt my mouth open and my tongue stay on the bottom of my mouth [point to mouth]. There is a short a in bad. Now, I’m going to see if it’s in shake. Hmm, I didn’t hear the a sound and my tongue wasn't at the bottom of my mouth. Now, you try! If you hear /a/ say, “I’m scared!” Here we go! Is it in cat, drop, shoe, crab, school, mask? [Have children point to their mouth/tongue when they feel /a/ say its name.]
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Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /a/. When spelling /a/, you use the letter a. Let’s work on spelling last; like your last name. First, we need to know how many phonemes are in the word, so we can spell it in letterboxes. Let’s stretch our word out to count the number of phonemes: /l/ /a/ /s/ /t/. I need 4 boxes. I heard /l/ at the beginning, so I’ll start with l. Then, I heard /a/ and then /s/ and /t/ at the end. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word.]
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Say: Now I am going to spell some words in letterboxes. We will start with two boxes for the word at. When you are talking about where you are, you can say where you are at. “I was at school today.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers.] What goes in the second box? [Walk around the room to observe progress.] Okay, for our next word we need three letterboxes. You will need to listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then, listen for /a/ and finally, listen for the last sound that will finish the word. Here is our word: pan, I need a pan to cook my dinner; pan. [Give students time to spell word.] Okay, let’s check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: p - a - n and see if you spelt it the same way. Let’s try another word with three boxes: bad, I do not want to be bad for my teacher, bad. [Give students time to spell word then demonstrate on the board and ask them to compare their spelling.] Now, let’s try a new word with four letterboxes. The word is mask, I wore a scary mask for Halloween, mask. [Give students time to spell word then demonstrate on the board.] Let’s try one more with four phoneme boxes. The word is trap, I see a mouse in that trap, trap. [Give students time to spell word then have a volunteer spell it on the board for students to check their work.] Now for our last word, I want you to spell a word with five phoneme boxes. The word is plant, I love to plant flowers, plant. [Give students time to spell the word and ask if there is a volunteer to spell the word on the board.]
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Say: Now you get to read the words you have spelled. First, I’ll show you how I would read a hard word. [Display plant on the board and model reading the word.] I know this is a long word, so I’ll start from the beginning and uncover one letter at a time. First, I see /p/, then /l/, now I hear /a/, then /n/, and finally, it ends with/t/. Now I can read it, ppplllaaannnttt, plant. Now you try! [Let the class read the words aloud and then call on individuals to read one word on their own.]
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Say: You have all done a great job reading words with our new correspondence /a/. We are going to read a book called Lad and the Fat Cat. Lad is sleepy and really wants to take a nap on his mat. But, there is somebody on it! Will Lad be able to take his nap? Let’s read to see what happens next! [Students will pair up and take turns reading the book to one another alternating pages while the teacher walks around the room to monitor progress. After partner reading, the class will read Lad and the Fat Cat aloud and stop every couple of pages to talk about what is happening.]
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Say: That story was fun! Did Lad ever get to finish his nap? Yes, he did. Before we finish up with our new lesson, I want you to solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, there are two words for each picture. Your job is to pick the correct /a/ word to match the picture. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual student progress.]
Resources:
Lauren Whittle, “Aaaaaaa, an alligator!” https://sites.google.com/view/ms-whittle/beginning-reading
Book: Murray, Bruce, and Geri Murray. “Lad and the Fat Cat.” Lad and His Pals, GenieBooks, 2019, pp. 1–10.
Worksheet: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/197454764887838912/?nic_v2=1a76Y3keX
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