Rationale: In this lesson children will learn about the long vowel correspondence a_e = /A/. In order for the children to be able to read, they much learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling a_e. They will learn a meaningful representation (bake a cake with Blake), 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: You will need a graphic image of Blake baking a cake; a cover up critter; whiteboard or Smartboard Letterbox for modeling the group and then individual Letterboxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or Smartboard letters for teachers: a, B, c, d, e, f, g, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, w; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: at, ape, red, bug, cage, cake, name, frog, trade, snake, plane, thrill, scrape; a decodable text: Jane and Babe; and an assessment worksheet.
Procedures: 1. In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with a, such as cat, wag, flag, grass, and splash. So today we are going to learn about the long Aand the silent esignal that is used to make the Asay its name, /A/. When I say /A/ I think of a fun activity where you “Bake A Cake with Blake”. (Show the 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 asay its name /A/ and my mouth makes a shape like this. (Make vocal gesture for /A/). My tongue stays behind my bottom teeth and I let out a long /A/ sounds. I’ll show you first: cake. I heard asay its name and I felt my mouth move to make the a. That means that there is a long ain cake. Now I’m going to see it is in car. Wow, I didn’t hear asay its name and my mouth didn’t make that movement. Now you can try. If you hear /A/ say “Bake A Cake with Blake” and if you don’t hear /A/ say “No not here”. OK, so is it in ape, cat, name, snake, wag, bite? 3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /A/, that is what we will learn today. One way to spell /A/ is with the letter aandsignal eat the end of the word, this tells me to say A’sname. (Write a_e on the board). This blank line here means there is a letter (a consonant) after a, and at the end of the word there is a silent esignal. So what if I want to spell the word trade? “If I trade my coins in I will get a prize.” Trade means to exchange something for something else. To spell tradein my letterboxes, first I need to know how many sounds or phonemes I have in the word. So I will stretch it out and count: /t/ /r/ /A/ /d/. I need 4 boxes. I heard that /A/ just before the /d/ so I’m going to put an a in the 3rdbox and the silent esignal outside the last box. The word starts with /t/, so that mean I need my t. Now it gets a little harder, so I’m going to say it again but slowly, /t/ /r/ /A/ /d/. I think I heard a /r/ so I will put the rright after the tin the other letterbox. I now have one empty letterbox, let’s listen one more time to slowly to see what comes last, /t/ /r/ /A/ /d/. I think I heard a /d/, so the missing one is d. 4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You will start out easy with two boxes for ape. An ape is a kind of monkey. “We saw an ape at the zoo”. What should go in the first box? (respond accordingly to the child’s answer). What goes in the second box? What about the silent e, do you remember where to put it? Outside of the boxes? I will walk around the room and check. (Observe progress). Now you will need three letterboxes for the next word. Remember to listen for the beginning sounds that will go in the first box. Then listen for our /A/ sound and then don’t forget to put the signal silent eat the end, outside of the boxes. Here is our new word cage. A cage is where you can put things. “My mom put my dog in a cage to ride in the car”. (Allow the children time to spell the word). Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: c---a---g---e. Now see if you spelled it this way. Let’s try another one with three letterboxes. Our new word is name. “My teacher always tells me to write my name on my work”. (Allow the children time to spell the word). Time to check your work. (Have a volunteer spell it on the letterboxes on the board). (Repeat this step for each new word). Now we have a new word. Listen to see if this word says /A/ in it before you spell it crab. “Crabs can pinch you if you aren’t careful”. Did you need a silent e? Why not? Right, because we didn’t hear asays its name. We spell it with our short vowel a. (Have a volunteer spell it on the board). Now let’s try a word with 4 phonemes and 4 boxes plane. “I went on a plan to get to vacation”. You can do one more before we are done with the spelling. This word will need 5 boxes because it has 5 sounds scrape. “When I fell down, I had a scrape on my knee”. Remember you can stretch out the words to help you figure out hard ones. 5. Say: Now I’m going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. (Display the board with scrapeon top and model reading the word). First I see there’s a silent eon the end. That is my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s a vowel a, so it must say /A/. I’m going to use my cover up critter to get the first part. (Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend the vowel). /s/ + /c/ + /r/ = /scr/. Now I’m going to blend that with /A/ = /scrA/. Now all I need is the end. At the end is /p/ = /scrAp/. Scrape, that’s it. Now it’s 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 have done a great job reading words with our new spelling for /A/, which is a_e. Now we are going to read a book called Jane and Babe. This is a story of a lion named Babe and his owner names Jane. Babe has to stay in a cage, but his owner Jane comes in and plays with Babe. They have a race to pail. We are going to have to read the book to find out about their big race to the pail. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Jane and Babeto find out what happens. (Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each. The teacher walks around the room monitoring everyone progress. After the children are done with their paired reading, the class reads Jane and Babealoud together, don’t forget to stop between each page to discuss the plot). 7. Say: That was a great story! Who won the race to the pail? Correct, Babe won because he is a lion and can run faster. What was the mystery in the pail? Oh yes, Babe’s dinner. Great job! Now before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /A/ by a_e, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem all on your own. On this worksheet, there will be words that you have to write yourself and circle which picture matches the word. Then there is a fun crossword, so you have to find all the words with the /A/ sound. (Collect worksheet to evaluate individual child progress).