AAAA!! Ghost! It's Halloween!
Beginning Reading Lesson Design
Madison Keith
Rationale: As beginning readers progress and gain recognition of phoneme correspondences, and understand the idea that each written letter is represented vocally with a speech sound. Upon developing an understanding of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, students will become one step closer to becoming fluent readers. Today, the goal of our lesson will be for students to learn and understand that a=/a/. Students will learn this ideal through meaningful representation, (saying “AAAA!!” when they see a ghost,) a letterbox lesson which focuses on /a/, and a decodable book.
Materials:
Image of a frazzled child (as seen above)
Chart with a tongue twister: "Andrew and Alice asked if Annie's active bats were angry"
Whiteboard
Coverup critters
Letterboxes (amount depending on amount of students being taught)
Chart of spelling words on a poster: cap, bat, man, bin, jam, tub, cup, bag, and, cut
Letters to model for letter box lesson: a,b,c,d,i,j,m,n,p,t,u
Primary pencil and paper
Decodable book: A Cat Nap for each student
Assessment worksheet
Procedures:
Say: Reading is so much fun! In order for us to become better readers, we must first learn the secret code which tells us how to pronounce words. I know that we all know the vowels, can we as a class tell me what they are? [they say: a,e,i,o,u]. Good! Today we are going to learn about the vowel /a/.
Ask students: On Halloween, what would you say if someone dressed as a ghost jumped out of the bushes and says “BOO!”? [students say: AAAAA!!] Right! You scream by saying “AAAAA!” In fact, when when scream about the ghost on Halloween, we make the same sound as the letter /a/ vowel. The letter /a/ says aaaaaa. Every time we hear “aaaa” lets put our hands on our face like we’re scared, as the little boy is doing in the picture! [point at the picture seen at the top of the screen which will be printed out and posted on a poster during the lesson.]
Say: Ok class, lets practice. Say the word “Bat” [They say bat and put their hands on their face like they’re scared.] Good! I have a tounge tickler for you. Every time we hear the /a/ sound, put your hands on your face like you’re scared of the ghost! [point at tongue tickler on the poster] “Andrew and Alice asked if Annie's active bats were angry”
Say: Good Job! Now, I’m going to say some words and if you hear /a/, put our hands on our face like we’re scared: cap, bat, man, bin, jam, tub, cup, bag, and, cut.
Ask the children to pull out their letterboxes and letters: a,b,c,d,i,j,m,n,p,t,u. Use the whiteboard to do the lesson with the class. Say: “I’m going to show everyone how to read a hard word. When we come across unfamiliar words [writes “bat” on the board] we use our coverup critters to sound out different parts of the word and put them together to make a word. First, pull out two letterboxes. Let’s spell “at.” [check their work]. Say: Good! Next, lets get a third letterbox and spell “bat.” [continue on with the same approach to spell cap, man, and bag. Good job! Now, I am going to write them on the board and we are going to say them together. [go through all of the words].
Pass out student copies of A Cat Nap and give the book talk: Do you like animals? What about cats? This book is about a cat named Tab. Tab likes to nap so much that she naps everywhere! Tab decided to take a nap in Sam’s bag, and he took her to baseball on accident! Will Sam realize that he took tab to baseball? Read the book silently to yourselves to find out!
[ask students to take out their paper and pencils.] Say: “We are going to practice writing /a/ on our paper! Start at the fence, make a circle to the ground, and draw a line from the fence down to the ground at the end of the circle. [model]. Say: Now practice! [Ask students to draw four of them].
To assess the children, pass out she “Short A sound” worksheet. [silent work] Have students name each of the pictures, and circle the images which exhibit the a=/a/ sound.
References:
Worksheet:
A Cat Nap
https://auburn.instructure.com/courses/1071717/files?preview=107804891
Murray, Bruce A. and Theresa Lesniak “The letterbox lesson: A Hands On
Approach for Teaching Decoding.” The Reading Teacher. Vol. 52, No. 6
March, 1999. 664-650.