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Ellie the Elephant says the Creaky Door says Ehh

Beginning Reading Lesson

By: Karley Franklin

Rational: This lesson will help beginning readers to learn to read words and recognize the spellings to map out the word pronunciations. The lesson will consist of the short vowel correspondence e=/e/. The children will be able to learn a meaningful representation and practice spelling and reading words with the spelling e=/e/. The meaningful representation they will learn will be then putting their hands together like they are praying and to slowly open their hands towards themselves, almost like they are reading a book. The teacher will demonstrate so there is no confusion. After this they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and then read a decodable book that focuses on the e=/e/ correspondence.

Materials:

  • Picture of Ellie the Elephant opening the creaking door and the door saying “Ehh”

  • Dry erase board and dry erase markers/ smartboard

  • Elkonin boxes for teacher for modeling as well as one for each child

  • Magnetic letter manipulatives for the teacher to model with along with enough letter manipulatives for each child: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, l, n, p, r, t, w.

  • List of spelling words on a poster or on the white board to read: left, held, crab, blend, wag, cent, pet, ten, pelt.

  • The book Red Gets Fed

  • Assessment worksheet: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/alphabet/matchwordsandpix/shorte/

 

Procedures:

  • Say: In order for us to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today we will be working on short e words! When I say /e/ I always think of our friend Ellie the elephant opening the creaky door and hearing the /e/ sound (show graphic image).

  • Say: Okay so lets do some practice listening for /e/ in some words. When Ellie and I listen for the /e/ in words, we hear e make the sound of a creaky door. When I say words that have short vowel /e/ sound in them my mouth is slightly open with my tongue sitting on the bottom (demonstrate how to hold your mouth for everyone to see). Now you try. Great job guys! Now lets practice with the word red. Does anyone hear the sound of the creaky door in this word? Awesome! You guys are just too smart! Does anyone feel that they have their mouth slightly open with their tongue on the bottom? Great! Now lets try the word tree. Hmmm I didn’t feel my mouth open slightly with my tongue on the bottom of my mouth for this word. I also didn’t hear the /e/ sound that our friend Ellie told us the creaky door sound makes. Now its yalls turn. If you hear the sound /e/ I want you to use your hands and pretend you are opening a creaky door. If you don’t hear /e/ then keep your door shut and say no that’s not it. Okay lets give it a try, do you hear /e/ in get, rod, ten, wet, pan, leg.

  • Say: Now we are going to practice our spelling of /e/ that we learned today. Lets try the word best? “I need to always try my best!” Lets spell best in the letterboxes. First I need to know how many sounds I have in the word best so lets stretch it out and count the sounds: /b/ /e/ /s/ /t/. I counted four sounds so I will need four boxes all together. I heard that creaky sound /e/ just before the /s/ sound so I am going to put /e/ in the second box. I first sound we heard was a /b/ sound so I am going to put the letter d in my first box. In order to figure out my last two letter I am going to have to say it again, /b/ /e/ /s/ /t/. Okay I heard the /s/ right after the /e/ so I am going to put a /s/ right after my creaky letter /e/ in the third box. Lastly, I hear the letter /t/ so I am going to put the letter /t/ in my last letterbox.

  • Say: Now its yalls turn to spell some words in your letter boxes. We are going to start off easy with three boxes for the word met because it has three sounds. Lets try stretching out the word together so that we can hear all of the sounds: mmmmeeeettttt. Where do we hear our creaky /e/? (kids responses) What sound do we hear at the beginning of the word? What about after the /e/ sound? Great! Put what you think it is in the boxes and I will be coming around to check to see how everyone is doing on their spelling. (walk around and check progress). If you don’t get it at first then that perfectly fine but just try stretching the word out and listen to the sounds to help you. Okay great everyone! Now lets try a new word. For this new word you will need four letter boxes because there will be four sounds in this word. Remember that we are looking for the sound /e/. The next word to spell is left “The little boy is left and right handed” (let kids spell the word) Now that everyone has had a chance to spell their word lets check up on the board to see if you got it right. Watch closely to how I spell the word left in my letter boxes: l-e-f-t. Check to see if you spelled it right! Great job everyone! Now lets take a look at another four-letter box word. The new word is held. The mama held the baby. I want you to stretch the word out and spell it using your letter boxes( when this is complete have someone come up to the board to demonstrate in front of the class so everyone can check their work). Repeat each of these steps for the new words: crab, blend, wag, cent, pet, ten. Lets look at the word crab. “I like to see the crabs at the beach.” Does this word have an /e/ in it? Why not? Yes! Correct! Because we don’t hear the e=/e/ “ehhh” like the creaky door (a volunteer may demonstrate on the board).

  • Say: Now we are going to read the words that everyone has spelled. But first lets look at how to read a really tough word. ( display the word pelt on the board in the letter boxes). Lets try to find the creaky /e/ that says “ehhh.” Lets use our cover up critter to get the first part. (Uncover and smooth blen before the vowel, and then blend the vowel). /p/ /e/. Great! We got the beginning of the word so now lets try the end. Lets look at the word carefully, /l/ /t/ is the end. /p//e/ + /l//t/ = /pelt/. Pelt! That’s it! Great Yall! Now I would like for everyone to read the rest of the words off of the letterbox lesson. (After this call on students randomly to read certain words.

  • Say: I am so happy the way everyone has read all of the new words for our new /e/ sound. Now we are going to read an amazing book called Red Gets Fed. The story is about a little girl named Meg and her dog Red. He wants to get fed but everyone makes him beg first. Do you think Red the dog will ever get fed? We will see! Lets read to find out! Read this book to a partner. Each person can read the story once. I want everyone to be paying attention and if you get stuck on a word then use your cover-up critter to help you figure it out (children read the book to each other as the teacher walks around and monitors progress). After individuals are done reading, the class will reread Red Gets Fed aloud together, and the teacher will stop between pages to discuss the plot.

  • Say: Wowza! What an incredible story! Was Red hungry? Did Red ever get fed? Before we finish up our /e/ lesson I want to see how you do with a fun work sheet. On this worksheet we are reading the words and then finding the picture that matches. Next, we draw a line from the word we read to the picture that it goes with. First, we need to read all of the /e/ words and then match them up with the correct picture second. (Collect worksheets and evaluate each child’s individual process).

Resources:  

 

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