Beginning Reader Design

Rationale:

This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence a=/a/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling with the letter “a” and makes the short /a/ sound. They will learn a meaningful representation (cat I says /a/), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a=/a/. 

Materials:

Graphic image of a black cat; cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child: t,r,a,s,h,p,l,k,c,b,g,d; list of spelling words on a poster or whiteboard to read: trash, tap,hat,lack,grab,brag, cat, black, bad; and assessment worksheet. 

Procedures:

1. Say: 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 words with i and e, like big and bed, and today we are going to learn short a and that it makes an ah sound. When I say /a/ I think of something like a black cat. (show graphic) 

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /a/, we need to listen for it in some words. I’ll show you first: Gift. I heard a say its name and I heard the ah short a in the middle. There is a short a in bat. Now I’m going to see if it’s in red. Hmmm, I didn’t hear the bad ah in the word den. Now you try. If you hear /a/ say, “bad black cat ah.” If you don’t hear /a/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in trash, tap, dog, mom, hat, big. (have students do the bad cat motions with their hands when hearing the short a sounds.)

3. Say: Now Im going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with three boxes for kid and provide a sentence for them (The dad put his hat back.) What should go in the first box? [Respond to their answers]. What goes in the second box? [Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Here’s the word: tap (He likes to tap his foot.) Check the kids’ work. Say: watch how I spell it in my letterboxes: t-a-p and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another word: mat (my bud is on my mat.) [Repeat this step for each word.] (grab, trash, lack). 

4. Say: Now I’m going to let you read the words you’ve just spelled. First, let me show you how I would read a tough word. First, I’m going to look for my bad cat /a/. Now that I know my word has the bad cat /a/ in it, I’m going to cover up my word and uncover my word little by little. /b/ + /r/= br. Now I add my /a/ and get my bra. Finally, I add my ending letter /g/. brag; that’s it. Now its your turn, everyone together. [Have students read words in unison, and then call on individual students to read one of the students to read one of the words on the list, continue this until every student has read a word.] 

5. Say: You’ve done a great job reading words with our new spelling for /a/=a. Now we are going to read a book called A Cat Nap . Tab is a cat who took a nap in a bag. The bag belonged to a man named sam and he took the bag that tab was in and found him when he was looking for his bat.

6. Say: You all did a wonderful job reading A Cat Nap! Before we finish theet:  lesson, we are going to practice what we learned by doing a worksheet. 

Reference:

Book: A Cat Nap https://auburn.instructure.com/courses/1340880/files/171568618/download?wrap=1