Every E says /e/

By Anna Ickes

This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence e=/e/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling e. They will learn a meaningful representation (a goat saying ehhhh),they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence e=/e/.

Materials: Graphic image of goat; cover-up critter; letterbox lamented squares; letter manipulatives:a,c,e,m,n,p,s,t;list of spelling words on poster to read:cat, men, net, pen, went, west, want;decodable text: Ed,and assessment worksheet.

Procedures:

1. Say: In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with /a/, like cat, and today we are going to learn about long short e. When I say /e/ I think of a goat letting out a great long /e-e-e-e-eh/ [show graphic image].

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /e/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /e/ in words, I hear e say its name /e/ and my lips pull back and the sound comes from the bottom of my mouth. I’ll show you first:went. I heard the /e/ and I felt my lips pull back. There is a short e in went. Now I’m going to see if it’s in what. Hmm, I didn’t hear /e/ and my lips pull back. Now you try. If you hear /e/ say, “e-e-eh like the goat.”If you don’t hear /e/ say, “I don’t think so.”Is it in Tent, paint, met, pens, knit, ten?

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /e/ that we’ll learn today. The way to spell /e/ is with the letter at the beginning of the word or in the middle surrounded by consonants. [Write e on the board.] What if I want to spell the word went? “I went to the store to buy eggs.” Went means to go somewhere. To spell went in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /w/e/n/t. I need 4 boxes. I heard that /e/ just before the /n/ so I’m going to put an e in the 2nd box. The word starts with /w/, that’s easy; I need an w. Now I’m going to say it slowly, /w/e/n/t/. I think I heard /t/ so I’ll put a t right after the n. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /w/e/n/t/.]

4.Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with three boxes for men. “Men is a group of adults like your dads and uncles.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room.[Observe progress.]You’ll need four letterboxes for the next word.Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /e/ and don’t forget that goats say /e-e-eh/. Here’s the word: west, the sun sets in the west; west. [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: w-e-s-t and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with four boxes: tent; I slept in a tent while camping. [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. Now let’s try 5 phonemes: Listen to see if this word has /e/ in it before you spell it: slept; I slept soundly last night. Did you need a /e/? [volunteer spells it on the front board.]

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 slept on the top and model reading the word.] First I see there’s the /e-e-eh/. There’s the vowel e.It must say /e/. 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.] /s/l/ = /sl/. Now I’m going to blend that with /e/ = /sle/. Now all I need is the end, /p//t/ = /pt/ Now put it all together: /sle/ + /pt/ = /slept/. Slept; 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.]

[s][l][e][p][t]

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /e/ Now we are going to read a book called Ed. This is a story of a boy named Ed with a very funny hat. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Ed to find out what he does with his very funny hat. [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 Ed aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

7. Say: That was a fun story. What did Ed do with his hat? He made a friend! What do you think of Ed’s silly friend? What was his name? Right, Eb! Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell with /e/, I want to see how you can find /e/. On this worksheet, we have some pictures with the sound /e/. Your job is color in the pictures with the /e/ sound, then circle the words with /e/ in them. Finally, write three words that you learned with /e/. Think of the story we just read or the words that we spelled today. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]

Resources:

Short E Sounds Worksheet

Mylet, Trish; Ed

Index