A Beginning Reading Lesson

Aaaaaa!

How exciting!

By Maggie Boles

Rationale: In this lesson, children are going to learn how to recognize, spell, and read words containing the short vowel a = /a/. They will learn a meaningful representation by saying “Aaaaa! How exciting!” to learn and practice the /a/ sound. They will also do this by reading and spelling words that contain this particular correspondence in a Letterbox lesson, and by reading a decodable book that focuses on the specific correspondence, a = /a/.

Materials:

1.A picture of an emoji that is excited saying “Aaaaa! How Exciting!”

2. Cover-up critter

3. White board and a dry erase board for modeling

4. Letterboxes and letter manipulatives for each student

5. Magnetic letters for the teacher/person in charge

6. Several copies of the decodable book A Cat Nap (URL below)

7. Assessment worksheet for each student (URL below).

Procedures:

Say: “In order to become an excellent reader, we all must learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today, we are going to learn about the vowel short a. When I say /a/, I think about someone saying ‘Aaaaa! How Exciting!’ because it is so exciting!” After this, the teacher should show the picture of the excited person to the class and ask them to say /a/.

Say: Before we learn how to spell words with the letter /a/, we need to listen for it in a few words. You ready? When we say /a/, our mouth opens wide and we are making the sounds from the very back of out throat.” (Make a vocal gesture for /a/). Let me show you first: pat. I heard a, like someone was excited and felt my mouth open up wide. There is a short a in pat. Let’s see if we can hear the excited /a/ in a few more words. Do we hear the excited /a/ in the word wear? I didn’t hear out excited /a/ in that word, did you?” Let the class take a minute to answer. “If you hear /a/ in the words that I am about to call out, I want you to put your hands up in the air like you are excited! Are you ready? Let’s start. Do you hear /a/ in Fan? Had? Paid? Pump? Rap? Sap? Clam? Pop? Bag?

Say: Now we are going to learn how to spell words that have our excited /a/ that we have been learning! What if we want to spell the word pass? First, I need to count the phonemes…/p/ /a/ /ss/. We have three sounds, so we need three boxes!’. Now you can draw three letterboxes on the whiteboard. “I heard our excited /a/ in the middle of out word, so we can put that in the middle box. The first sound that we hear is /p/ /p/ /p/, so that is a P. We will put that letter in our first box. After our excited /a/ we hear /s/ /s/ /s/, so that is SS. That can go in the third box. Now we are done! Let’s sound out the word together, then we can read it: /p/ /a/ /ss/, pass.

Say: Now it is your turn to spell some words with letterboxes. Our first word is tap, as in: I had to tap her on her arm. How many phonemes are there?” Give the class a minute to answer (three). “Good job! Now you can line up three boxes, and put all of your letters in them!”. Observe your students to watch their progress. “Great job everybody! Our next word will be map, as in: Cam got lost so he used a map. How many phonemes do you count?”. Give the class a minute to answer (three). “Nice work! Now you can fill in the boxes while I watch the class.” Observe your students progress. Next, have your students spell spat (three phonemes), chat (three phonemes), hand (four phonemes), land (four phonemes), clam (three phonemes), have your students count the phonemes in each word as a group before spelling them out individually. Model how to do this for your students if necessary.

Say: “Now I am going to let you read the words that you have spelled, but first let me show you how I would read a tough word.” Write the word track on the white board. “This is how to read the word without the letterboxes. I can start by covering up all the letters except for the /A/ in the middle. Remember: /a/ makes the excited sound! Everyone get excited with me! Next, I know the word starts with /t/ /r/ and I know that is spelled t - r. The end of the word is /ck/, which I know is spelled c - k. So now I have /t/ /r/ /a/ /ck/, track.” Write hack, crack, wack, hash, thrash, and the pseudoword bram on the white board (one at a time). Have your students read each word before they write the next one.

Say: “Since everyone is doing such a good job with our excited /a/ sound, let’s move on to a book! This book is called ‘A Cat Nap’. This is about a cat named Tab who likes to take naps. One day he takes a nap in a bag. We will have to read the rest of the book to find out what happens next!” You can have your students pair up and read the book together while you monitor progress After, have your students read “A Cat Nap” as a large group and discuss the story’s events/illustrations page by page.

Resources:

Hayes, Peyton, Aaaaa! Spooky!, https://hayespeyton1999.wixsite.com/mysite/beginning-reading

Murray, G, Oh, I didn’t know!, http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/

Educational Insights, A Cat Nap

Assessment worksheet: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/531143349780417525/?nic_v2=1a2Ng9njp