Procedures 

 

1. Say: if we want to become experts in reading, we need to learn the alphabetic code that tells us how to pronounce words we don’t know. We have already learned about how to read short vowel words with a like tap and today we are going to learn about how long A and an e show us that A says its own name /A/. when I think of /A/, I think of this guy from tv who always says “ay” to his friends when he sees them. [show graphic image]

 

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /A/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /A/ in words, I hear a say its name /A/ and my stay apart and my mouth opens a little more. [make vocal gesture for /A/]. Let me show you: flame.  I heard a say its name and my mouth opened a little more to make the sound. There is a long A in flame. Now I’m going to see if it’s in sad. I didn’t hear a say its name! Now you try! If you hear /A/, say “ay” and give me a thumbs up just like Fonzie! If you don’t hear it, I want you to shake your finger and say, “no no!” Is it in snow, brave, waste, rap, nose, tape?

 

3. Say: now let’s look at the spelling of /A/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /A/ is with the letter a and a signal e at the end of the word to tell us to say A’s name. [write or display a_e on the board/screen.] This blank line means that there is a consonant after a and at the end there is an e signal. What if I want to spell the word plane? “we took a plane to go on vacation.” To spell plane in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /p//l//a//n//e/. So we need to 4 boxes because the e is silent so it goes outside the last box. I heard the /A/ so I am going to put an a in the 3rd letterbox and the signal e at the enf.  The word starts with /p/ so that one is easy we need a p. Now I heard an /l/ so I'll put it right after the p. One more box and that is  where the /n/ needs to go. It is going to fill in the blank in a_e so I will put it in the 4th box.

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4. Say: Now I want you guys to spell some words using your tiles and letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with 2 boxes for the word ape. What should go in the first box? [respond to student answers]. What goes in the second box? [respond to student answers]. What about the silent e? Did you remember to put it outside the boxes? [walk around the room and check spellings]. You will need 3 letterboxes for this next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box and then listen for the /A/. Here is the word: cane. [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board c – a – n – e and see if you spelled it the same way. Let’s try another word with 3 boxes: rope. [Have volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word.] The next word will need 4 boxes. Listen to see if the word has an /A/ in it before you spell it: trap Did you need a silent e? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear a say its name. We spell it with our short vowel a. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Now let’s try another 4-box word: face; One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: frame. Remember to stretch it out to get this tough word.

 

5. Say: 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 frame on the top and model reading the word]. First, I see that there is a silent e on the end; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s the vowel a. It must say /A/. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] /f//r/=/fr/ Now I’m going to blend that with /A/ = frA. Now we just need the ending of /m/ and our silent e. Frame; that’s it. now it’s your turn. Everyone together. [Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]

 

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /A/: a_e. Now we are going to read a book called The Game. This is a story of a girl and her friend named Dan who are on a baseball team together. She wakes up late for her game so does Dan. They have to hurry really fast to get ready and make it there. Will they make it to their baseball game in time or will their team have to play the game without them? Let’s pair up and take turns reading The Game to find out what happens! [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads The Game aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

 

7. Say: That was a fun story. Did the girl and Dan make it to their game? Did they win?  Right! They made it just in time and their team the Dots won! Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /A/ = a_e, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem of missing words. On this worksheet, we have some words missing. Your job is to look in the box of word choices and decide which a_e word fits best to make sense of the sentence. First try reading all the words in the box, then choose the word that fits best in the missing space in each sentence. Reread your answers to see if they make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]