Caroline Elizabeth Hall

Rationale: This lesson will teach students the long vowel correspondence of a_e = /A/. Students will learn to spell, read, and recognize the phoneme a_e = /A/. We will use a meaningful, visual representation of taking a trip to space. When looking at our visual representation, we will emphasize the long A sound. The children will spell and read words containing a_e = /A/ in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book focusing on this correspondence.

Materials: four space pictures along with materials needed to hang after each step; white board and dry-erase markers; cover-up critter; letterboxes for each student (neon colored flash-cards work well); letter manipulatives for each child and teacher: s, r, a, c, e, t, m, g, d, p, l, n; list of spelling words on a poster to read: strafe, race, tame, grade, scrape, snack, plane; decodable text: Jane and Babe; assessment worksheet.

Procedures:

1. Say: “We have a very important job to do today! Together we have to get an astronaut from Earth all the way to the moon. We have thirty-minutes to get our astronaut to the moon so pay attention and do your best, it’s a race to space! We are going to help our astronaut by learning a new vowel, long a and silent e. To become an expert reader and help the astronaut, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowels, including short a in the word bat. Today, we are going to learn about long a and the silent e signal that is used to to make /A/ say its name.”

1. Say: “Before we learn about the spelling of long A, we need to listen and find it in some words. When I listen for /A/ I hear the letter a say it’s name /A/. Let’s all say the word space, and as we do think about what happens in your mouth as you get to the letter a; ssssss-pp-AAAA-ce, say it two more times, space, space. As I said the word space, when I got to the vowel a, my mouth stretched to the sides and my tongue touched my bottom teeth. Now I’m going to see if I hear the long /A/ sound in pat. Hmm… I didn’t hear a say it’s name and my mouth didn’t stretch to the sides. Now you try. If you hear /A/ in a word smile and point to the sides of your mouth just like you’re saying the /A/ sound. Is it in lake, snake, pad, trade, sit, crate, grape? Great job! We have now finished the first step, building our space shuttle!” (Hang up picture #1 of the space shuttle being assembled).

1. Say: “Now let’s look at the spelling of /A/. You spell /A/ with the letter a, a letter in the middle, and the letter e that is silent” (write a_e on a white board to demonstrate). “The space in the middle is reserving a place for another letter, a consonant, to go. What if I want to spell the word race? ‘The astronauts are going to race to space.’  To spell race in the letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word. To find the phonemes, I am going to stretch out the word and count each time my mouth moves” (demonstrate on your fingers as you count): “/r/ /A/ /s/. I need 3 boxes.” (For the next section, demonstrate for the children by using your letterboxes to spell the word as they follow along) “In the first box, I will put the letter I hear at the beginning of the word, /r/, that’s easy! It’s letter r! Next, I heard the /A/ so I am going to put letter a in the 2nd box. We have /r/ /A/ -what do we hear next? I hear the /s/ sound next in race, in this case we use letter c. Now it can get tricky, so I’m going to say it a tad slower, /r/ /A/ /s/. I hear a long /A/ sound, which means there is a silent e on the end. We spell race just like this with a silent e at the end. Any time you have a letter that is silent, it goes outside of the letterboxes, /r/ /A/ /s/ e.”  (Point to the letters in the boxes as you stretch out the word).

1. Say: “Now I’m going to have you spell a few words in letterboxes. Let’s start with another word with 3 boxes, tame. ‘The jalapenos on my nachos were tame.’ In this sentence, tame means they were not spicy! What letter should go in the first box?” (Respond to answer). “What goes in the second box? I’ll check and make sure you’re on the right track while I walk around the room. Did you remember where silent e goes?” (Observe progress) “For the next couple of words, you will need four colored boxes. Listen for the sound at the beginning of the word, this will go in your first box. Stretch the spelling out and put each letter you hear in a box. Remember one box for each phoneme, so each time your mouth moves and you hear a new sound use a different colored box. Here’s the word: grade, I hope I make a good grade on my math test on Friday; grade. (give children time to work on spelling the word) Time to check your work! Watch how I spell the word grade in my boxes on the board and see if you spelled it the same; g-r-a-d-e. Did you remember that the silent e goes outside the fourth box?” Let’s try another one with four boxes: plane, Mrs. Hall got to ride on a plane when she went to California, plane. (have volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word). Next word. Listen to see if this word has /A/ before you spell it; snack, I packed a yummy snack today. Did you need a silent e? (respond to answer) Why not? Right, because we don’t hear /A/ say it’s name. We spell it with our short vowel a. (volunteer spells it on the board). Did you remember to spell /k/ with a ck? Let’s do a couple more words; brave, I had to be brave to go into the dark cave, brave. Last one, once everyone is finished we will be one step closer on our journey to space! For this one, you will need 5 boxes. Ready? The word is scrape, My sister has a scrape on her knee from falling off of her bicycle, scrape. Remember to stretch out each sound that you hear. (walk around the room to observe, once everyone is finished or close to being finished hang up picture #2).

       Once everyone is finished, say: “We did it! Now our astronaut is getting dressed for the mission. Keep up the good work!”

1. Say: “Now I am going to let you read the words you just spelled, but first I am going to show you how to read a tough word.” (Show the word strafe on a poster and model reading the word). “I see letter f between the a and the e, which means the a makes a long /A/ sound. I am going to use a cover up to get the first part of the word.” (Uncover and blend the letters before the vowel, then blend with the vowel). “/s//t/ = /st/+/r/=/str/. Next let’s blend those letters with our vowel /A/, /strA/. Now all I have left is the ending, /f/ = /strAf/. Strafe; that it! Now it’s your turn, everybody let’s try together.” (Children will read together, after call on students individually to read a word from the list until everyone has had one turn. Hang up picture #3 for display). Say: “We finished reading our words and now it’s time for blast off! We are one step closer to helping our astronaut get to space!”

1. Say: “You have done a really good job today; we have almost reached our destination! Now we are going to read a book called Jane and Babe. This is a story about Jane, a zookeeper, and a lion named Babe. It’s time for Babe to eat dinner but Babe is asleep. Does Jane find a way to wake up Babe? Let’s read and find out if Jane can wake Babe up to get dinner.” (Students will get with a partner and alternate reading a page aloud while the teacher comes around the room to observe. When partner reading is over we will read the book and discuss as a class).

1. Say: “That was a fun story we read! Did Babe wake up and get to eat his dinner? Yes, that’s right! Now I want to see if you can identify the long /A/ sound we have been working on. On this worksheet, you will see a picture with three words under it. Read the words carefully and circle the word that represents the picture above.” (Collect worksheets and check answers later. When finished, hang up picture #4) Say: “Hooray! Our astronaut has made it to the moon! Thank you all for working so hard helping our astronaut reach his destination!”

Book: Cushman, S. & Kornblum, R. (1990) Jane and Babe.