BR Design
The Creaky Door Says Ehhhh !
A Beginning Reading Lesson
Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence e=/e/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words with e. They will learn a meaningful representation (a creaky door opening making the noise ehh), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence e=/e/.
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Materials: Enlarged copy of the image of a door opening; letterboxes for modeling and individual letter boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and for teacher: t, a, g, s, e, t, b, d, p, n, s, s, r, d; list of spelling words on white board to read: pet, bed, tag, sent, nest, stress; copy of decodable text Red Gets Fed and a coverup critter for each students; assessment worksheet.
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Procedures:
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Teacher says: In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned about /a/ as in tap, and today we are going to learn about short e and it sounds like e=/e/. When I say /e/ I think of a creaky door opening (show door image). Think of opening a door and it creaking ehhh.
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Teacher says: Before we learn about the spelling of /e/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /e/ in words, I hear e say “ehhh” and my mouth stays open while my tongue stays at my bottom teeth life this (make vocal gesture for /e/.) I will show you first with: red. I heard e say its /e/ sound and I felt my mouth open a little and my tongue stayed down (make an open mouth life saying the /e/ to demonstrate). There is a short e in red. How about we try the word head next. Hmm, I didn’t hear /e/ and my tongue did not stay down at the bottom with my teeth. Now you all are going to try. If you hear /e/ says “Ehh” and make a motion like you are opening up a creaky door. If you don’t hear /e/ I want you to shake your head and say “No!”. It is in left, right, back, bell, dog, pet? [Have students make the door opening motion when they feel the /e/ sound.]
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Teacher says: Now let’s look at the spelling of /e/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /e/ is with the letter e. (Write e on the board). What if I want to spell the word desk? “The student is sitting at a desk” To spell desk in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /d//e//s//k/. Looks like I will need 4 boxes. I heard the /e/ just before the /s/ so I’m going to put an e in the 2nd box. The word starts with /d/, that’s easy; I need a d. Now it gets a little harder so I’m going to say the word again slowly, /d//e//s//k/. I think I heard /s/ so I’ll put a s right after the e in the third box. One more empty box [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /d//e//s//k/], hmm…/d//e//s//k/, I think I heard /k/ so I need a k in the final box. Now let’s sound out each letter in the boxes and blend them together to see if we spelled desk correctly: /d/ /e/ /s/ /k/, desk!
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4. Teacher says: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. I will say the word and use it in a sentence. You’ll start out easy with three boxes for pet. Pet is like a dog or a cat it is an animal you have at home. “The girl got a pet cat”. What should go in the first letter box? That’s correct, p goes in the first letter box! What goes in the second letter box? And how about the third letter box? (allow time for students to respond while walking around classroom observing their work). Our next work is bed and also needs three boxes. Remember to listen for /e/ and what goes in the letter box before and after it. “He went to bed early”. How about we check our work and watch as I spell it on the board b-e-d. Okay how about another three letter box word we will do tag this time. “In gym class we played tag”. For this word did you use an e? Why not? Very good because we did not hear a /e/ sound but a short vowel a sound (have a student present their spelling to the class). Now we are going to try a four letter box word sent. “I sent her mail” Were you able to get both sounds that followed the short e this time? Next word will be nest. “Look at the nest in the tree”. Okay just one more word and we are done with spelling. This one is going to be five letter boxes. The word is stress. “I tell my friend not to stress”. That one was tricky did you remember to but the s’s together in the fifth letter box? Remember to stretch it out to get through tough words.
5. Teacher says: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with stress on the top and model reading the word.] First I see there is an e in it with no other vowels; that’s my signal that the e will probably say /e/. Now I am going to uncover the first part before the vowel e. /s//t//r/ = str. Now let’s blend that with /e/ so we get /stre/. Now we I will uncover the end of the word /s//s/ which will form /stress/. Now it is your turn to try together. (Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.)
6. Teacher says: You’ve done a great job reading words with /e/. Now we are going to read a book called Red Gets Fed. Red is a dog and Red is very hungry. Red wants to eat so he wakes up his family one by one. Do you think they will feed Red? Who will feed Red? You will have to read to find out! Let’s pair up and take turns reading Red Gets Fed to find out what happens. [Students pair up and take turns reading alternate pages to each other while the teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Red Gets Fed aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]
7. Teacher says: That was good story. Did Red get fed? That’s right, Red did get fed many times he must have been very hungry. Before we finish up with our lesson about /e/, I want to you to complete this worksheet. You will look at the first four pictures and color the ones with /e/. Then circle the words that have the short e sound. For that section consider sayings the words out loud to yourself or to a partner. For the last section write three words you found with the short e vowel sound. Then flip the page of to the back if you have time and write a sentence for each of the three words you chose. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
References:
Creaky Door: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ofsmallthings/8220574255
Cary Grisham, “Ehh Goes the Creaky Door”:
http://carlymgrisham.wixsite.com/mscarlyreading/beginning-reading
Geri Murray, Oh, I didn’t know! (cut and paste link to open this resource):
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/murraybr.htm
Book:
Cushman, Sheila, Pat Millie, and Patti Briles. Phonics Readers: Short Vowels. Dominguez Hills, CA.: Educational Insights, 1990. Print.
Assessment worksheet: