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Aaaa I'm Scared!! 

Beginning Reading

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Rationale:

This lesson will teach the children about the short vowel correspondence a=/a/. To be able to read, children must learn correspondences, so they are able to decode words. In this lesson, we will learn how to recognize, spell, and read words that have a=/a/ correspondence. The kids will learn an important representation (we say “Aaaa” when we get scared), they will read and spell words that have the a=/a/ correspondence in a letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that has a=/a/ at the for front.

 

Materials:

  • Image of a scared child

  • Tongue tickler on chart

  • Whiteboard

  • Letterboxes for every student, letter tiles for each student

  • Magnetic tiles for the teacher: a,b,c,d,k,l,m,n,p,r,s,t

  • List of the spelling words shown on the whiteboard to read: cat, at, pan, mask, and trap,

  • Decodable text: Lad and His Pals

  • Assessment worksheet

 

Procedures:

  1. Say: For us to become expert readers, we have to learn the sounds that letter make so we can know how to pronounce words. Every letter makes its own sound, and our mouths move in different ways to be able to make those sounds. Today we are going to learn about the letter A, and the sound that it makes, /a/. When I say /a/, I think that something is scaring me. When we get scared, we scream “Aaaa!”

  2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /a/, we need to be able to hear it in some words. When I say /a/, my mouth opens, and my tongue stays on the bottom of my mouth like this (show the example). First, I’ll show you: mad. I heard “a” and felt my mouth open and my tongue did stay on the bottom of my mouth. There is a short “a” in mad. Now, I’m going to see if it’s shake. Hmm, I didn’t hear the “a” sound and my tongue didn’t stay at the bottom of my mouth. Now, you try! If you hear /a/ say, “I’m scared” Here we go! Is it in bad, drop, foot, crab, mask? [Have the child point to their mouth as they sound out the words]

  3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /a/. When spelling /a/, you use the letter a. Let’s work on spelling fast.  First, we need to know how many phonemes are in the word, so we can spell it in letterboxes. Let’s stretch our word out to count the number of phonemes: /f/ /a/ /s/ /t/. I need 4 boxes. I heard /f/ at the beginning, so I’ll start with f. Then, I heard /a/ and then /s/ and /t/ at the end. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word.]

  4. Say: Now I am going to spell some words in letterboxes. We will start with two boxes for the word at. When you are talking about where you are, you can say where you are at. “I was at school today.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers.] What goes in the second box? Okay, for our next word we need three letterboxes. You will need to listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then, listen for /a/ and finally, listen for the last sound that will finish the word. Here is our word: pan, I need a pan to cook my dinner; pan. [Give students time to spell word.] Okay, let’s check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes: p - a - n and see if you did it the same way. Now, let’s try a new word with four. The word is mask, I wore a mask in the store, mask. [Give students time to spell word then show on the board.] Let’s try one more with four boxes. The word is trap, I see a mouse in that trap, trap. [Give students time to spell word then have a volunteer spell it on the board for students to check their work.] 

  5. Now you get to read the words you spelled. First, I’ll show you how I would read a word. [Display the word “trap” on the board] Explain, first I see /t/, then /r/, then /a/, and finally, /p/. Now I can read it tttrrraaappp. Now you try! [Let the class read the words aloud and then call on individuals to read one word on their own.]

  6. Say: You have all done a great job reading words with our new correspondence /a/. We are going to read a book called Lad and the Fat Cat. Lad is sleepy and really wants to take a nap on his mat. But there is somebody on it! Will Lad be able to take his nap? Let’s read to see what happens next! [Students will pair up and take turns reading the book to one while the teacher walks around the room to monitor progress. After partner reading, the class will read aloud and stop every couple of pages to talk about what is happening.] 

  7. Say: That story was really good! Did Lad ever get to finish his nap? Yes, he did. Before we finish up, I want you to work on this worksheet. There are two words for each picture. Your job is to pick the correct /a/ word to match the picture. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual student progress.]word to match the picture. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual student progress.

 

Resources:

“Aaaa! That’s Scary!” by Abbigail Willis https://agwillis7.wixsite.com/mysite-3/beginning-reading

Book: Murray Bruce, and Geri Murray. “Lad and the Fat Cat.”Lad and His Pals, GenieBooks, 2019, pp. 1-10.

Worksheet: https://www.enchantedlearning.com/alphabet/matchwordsandpix/shorta/

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