BAAAAA Goes the Sheep
Rationale: Students need to first learn vowel correspondences. We will start with a = /a/. To become good readers, children must learn to recognize words and their spelling maps. In this lesson, students will learn to recognize, spell, and read words that have the short vowel correspondence, a = /a/. Students will learn the meaningful representation of sheep saying (B)aaaaa, spell and read words that contain this correspondence in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a = /a/.
Materials: Graphic image of a sheep; cover-up critter; whiteboard individual letterboxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: bad, cat, back, pan, sad, thatch, ; decodable text Cat Naps and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
“Today we are learn the short vowel a sound. When I say /a/ thing a a sheep going BAAAAA BAAAA (show picture). Show the letter a and say “this sounds like /a/.”
“Before we learn how to spell with /a/. We are going to listen for /a/ in some words. When I say /a/ my jaw drops down with my tongue to the bottom of my mouth (make vocal gesture). I will show you first. Pat. I felt my jaw drop down and tongue to the bottom of my mouth. So yes Pat does have /a/ sound. Lets see if lit has the /a/ sound. I did not feel my jaw drop nor my tongue to the bottom of my mouth. Now your turn. Hold up your sheep when you here /a/ sound; bat, book, shock, ran, jap.”
“Now we are going to look how to spell your words. What if I want to spell the word sad?” “The man who lost is dog is sad.” “Sad is an emotion people feel. To spell sad with our letterboxes, I need to know how many phonemes are in the word so I stretch it out and count. /s/, /a/, /d/. I need 3 letter tiles. I heard /a/ after /s/ and /d/, so I am going to put a in the 2nd letterbox. The word starts with a s, so I am going to put it in the 1st letterbox. There is one more tile after the a. Hmmm. /s/ /a/. The last letter tile is /d/. Sad.” Now I am going to show you how to read a tough word. Show students the word strap on a sheet of paper. I am going to start with the letter tile a, which makes our /a/ sound. Now I’m going to put the beginning letters with it: s-t-r-a, /stra/. Now I will put that chunk together with the last sound. /stra-p/. Oh, strap as in, “I put the strap on the cooler.”
“Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for bad. “The bad child screamed at their mom.” Bad is describing how the child acted towards his mother. [Observe progress.] You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound to spell in the first box. Then listen for /a/. Here’s the word: cat, I see a fluffy cat. cat. [Allow children to spell remaining words, giving sentences for each word: back, pan, tag, thatch, map, stack, and stap.]
“Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled.” [Show the words back, pan, tag, and thatch, the extra words map and stack, and the pseudoword stap. Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]
“You have done a great job reading words with our new spelling for /a/. Now we are going to read a book called, “Cat Naps,” Booktalk: Top and Kit are cats. They love to take naps. They do this in very strange places. Can you guess what some of them are? Lets read to find out if any of those are where they nap!” (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 Cat Naps chorally, stopping between page turns to discuss the story.)
Describe worksheet: “Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell a = /a/, I want you to color all the words that you hear the /a/ sound. I will start you off do we hear /a/ in ten? Good! No, we do not. What about fan? Yes, we do! Great job. I will collect the sheets after everyone is done!”[Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
Resources:
Assessment Worksheet:
https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/short-a-sounds/
Julia Donaldson, Cat Naps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU6E18l17Ps
Hannah Hardin, Lesson Design:
https://hanhardin1020.wixsite.com/readinglessondesigns/beginning-reader-design