Rationale: This lesson is focused on short vowel correspondence a=/a/. To learn how to read, children must be able to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciation. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing ‘a’. They will learn a meaningful representation (scared cat), they will spell and read words containing the ‘a’, and read a decidable book that is focused on a=/a/.

Materials:

• Image of scared cat

• Cover up critter

• Letterboxes for each student (s,g,a,p,t,l,y,b)

• Marker and White board

• Decodable book CatNap

• Assessment Worksheet (URL below)

Procedures:

1. Say, “To become expert readers we have to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. When I say /a/ it makes me think of someone who is scared! Just like our scared friend.” *show scared cat picture* “Let’s all say /a/ together!” *everyone says /a/*

2. “Before we learn to spell words with /a/, I want you to listen and see if you hear the /a/. When we say /a/ we have a scared face like our friend on the board. Okay let’s start!” *Say bag, make scared face when saying /a/* “See, there’s a scared /a/ in bbbb/a/gggg. Now let’s try it together!” *continue the process with pat, tap, pay, and lap*.

3. “Now let’s learn how to spell words with scared /a/. /s/a/ck/ has three phonemes so we will put three boxes on the board. For the first box we hear sssss which is an s! Let’s put that in the first box. Now in sack we hear our /a/ so let's put it in our second box. Now in sack we hear the ck ck sound so let’s put it in our last box. Sss/a/ck, sack! Good Job!”

4. “It’s your turn now to practice with your letterboxes! How many phonemes are in gap? Three? Good! So put three boxes on your board and you will put your letters in the boxes.” *observe* *repeat process with sat, bag, pay.

5. “You guys did such a good job. Now let’s read the words you spelled together!” *write words on board and read each one together

6. “You all are so smart! Now we are going to read a book about Tab. Tab is a super sleepy kitty cat who ends up at Sam's baseball game. Let’s read to find out how he got there.” *pass out copies of book you made

7. “What a funny story! For our last activity we are gonna do a worksheet where you color all the words that have our scared /a/ in it.” *pass out copies of worksheet you made

References:

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/insights/

https://cem0136.wixsite.com/mysite/beginning-reading

https://sites.google.com/view/ms-ray-reading-lessons/emergent-literacy

Assessment: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_E0fDKYLQKASG5FeHBEbVVSZ1k/view?usp=sharing