Rationale: This lesson will teach children about the short vowel correspondence e= /e/. For children to be able to read, they must learn to recognize spellings that map word pronunciations. Throughout this lesson students will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing short e vowel. Children will also learn the meaningful representation of the creaky rocking chair to help them when coming across this vowel. They will spell and read words containing this vowel in the letterbox lesson, then read a decodable book focusing on short e.

 

Materials: Graphic image of the creaking rocking chair; cover up critter; whiteboard or smartboard boxes for modeling; individual boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for every child along with magnetic letters for the teacher; including r, e, d, s, p, l, l, b, n, c, h, t, g, h, g: list of words on the whiteboard: leg, spell, bent, help, strength: Elf in the Tent: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/bookindex.html

and assessment worksheets: https://www.havefunteaching.com/resource/phonics/short-e-matching-game-worksheet/

http://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=316591

 

Procedures:

1. Say: In order for all of you to become expert readers, we must first learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned the short a vowel, in cat, but today we are going to learn about the short e and the sound it makes. When we think about short e we need to think about our creaking rocking chair: eeee eeee eeee [show graphic image].

2. Say: Before we learn about e, we first need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for e in words I hear e say its name my tongue goes down to the bottom of my mouth and air blows out of my mouth. I’ll show you first: bed. I heard e say its name in bed, I felt the air come out and my tongue press down. Now I’m going to listen for it in bride. Hmmmm, did you hear e say “eeee” in bride? I didn’t feel my tongue go into the bottom of my mouth and air come out. If you hear e say “eeeee” like the creaky rocking chair, if you don’t hear o say “Nope, not it”. Is it in fled, drive, strike, streak, best, weld? Have children rock in their chairs when they hear e in the word.

3. Say: Now let’s look at e when it is in a word. Write E on the board. What if I wanted to spell the word tent? When you go camping out in the woods you might want to take tent. A tent is something you would sleep in if you were out in the woods. To spell tent in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count t-e-n-t. I need four boxes. I heard the /e/ right before, the /n/ so I need to put the e in the second box. The word starts and ends with a T so we will put that in the first and fourth box. Hmm there is one more letter after the /e/. We will need to put the /n/ in the third letter box. [point to letters in the boxes as you stretch out the word]

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in your own letterboxes. You will begin with an easy three letterboxes for leg. “Sally broke her leg when she fell out of the tree.” What should go in the first box? [respond to your student’s answers.] What goes in the second box? Finally, what goes into the third box? I’m going to walk around the room checking your spelling [observe the progress of your students.] You’ll need four letterboxes for the second word we will be spelling. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box, then listen for the /e/ sound. Here’s the word; bent; I bent my favorite toy, bent. [Give children time to sound out and spell the word.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it with my letterboxes on the board: b-e-n-t. See if you have spelt it the same way on your letterboxes? Try another with four boxes: spell. You need to learn how to spell all of these words. [Have a volunteer spell it in the letterboxes on the board so students can check their work, repeat this for each new word.] Your next word is help: I saw Tony help Sara clean up her mess. [Give students a few minutes to spell then select a volunteer.] Now were going to try a big word to finish the letter box, its six phonemes. Whoa! Keep in mind those phonemes that are letters together in the same box.

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 poster with strength on the top and model reading the word.] First I see the e in the middle of the word, and when we say it we know it sounds like the creaking rocking chair. Then, I’m going to get my cover up critter and sound out the first part of the word. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel then blend with the vowel.] /s/ /t/ /r/ /str/. Now I’m going to blend that with the /e/ sound /stre/. Now all I need is the ending, /n/ /gth/ /strength/. Now its your turn everyone together. [Have students read all the words in unison. After, call on individuals to read a word on the list until everyone is able to have a turn.]

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new vowel /e/. Now we are going to read a book called Elf in the Tent. This is a story of a little girl named Jan, she gets a new tent and plans a campout with her dad. But they don’t count on a secret guest showing up, you’ll have to read what happens next. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Elf in the Tent to find out who their secret guest is. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while the teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading the class rereads Elf in the Tent together and stops between each page to discuss the plot.]

7. Say: That was such a good story. Who was the secret guest? Right, the sneaky little Elf jointed them on their campout. Okay now I want to finish up the lesson with two fun worksheets. The first one you have puzzle pieces and you need to match the correct word to the picture using the short e vowel you learned today. The second worksheet is a set of pictures and you have to write the word to get some practice writing the letter e.

 

 

References:

Murray, G. Elf in the Tent. Reading Genie http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/bookindex.html

 

Assessment Worksheets:

http://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=316591

http://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=316591

 

Shelby Birdsong: “Let’s make Pie with I”

https://sab0077.wixsite.com/mysite/beginning-reading

 

 

The Reading Genie: Dr. Murray

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/fluency.html