It's Hard to Hear You!

by Regan Weakley

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Rationale:

This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence e = /e/. To be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. This lesson will teach children to identify, spell, and read words containing the letter e. Students will learn a meaningful representation (hard of hearing—hand cupped to ear), spell and read words containing e = /e/ in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that centers on the short vowel correspondence.

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Materials:

• Picture of an old man with hand cupped to ear

• cover-up critter

• whiteboard/smartboard

• Elkonin boxes for modeling

• individual Elkonin boxes for each student

• letter manipulatives for each student

• smartboard letters for teacher: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, t

• list of spelling words on poster to read: stress, egg, fret, zed, (pseudoword), map, chest, red, blend, drag, well, sled

• decodable text: Get the Pets, by Wayne Miller

• assessment worksheet (linked below)

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Procedures:
1. Say: In order to become skilled readers, we must learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with a, like the word rat. Today, we are going to learn about short e and when it says /e/. When I say /e/ I think of an old man who can’t hear with a hand cupped to his ear saying, “ehhh, I didn’t hear you!” [show picture].

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2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /e/, we need to first listen for it in words. When I listen for /e/ in words, I ask myself if I can hear the old man saying “ehhh, it’s hard to hear you!” [cup hand around ear for /e/] I also pay attention to the way my mouth moves. When I say /e/, my mouth is open, and I can feel my tongue behind my bottom teeth. Let me show you with the word: test. /t/ /t/ /e/ /e/ ssss /t/ /t/. I heard the /e/ and I felt my mouth open, while my tongue moved behind my lower teeth! There is a short e in test. Now, I’m going to see if there is a short e in bunch. /b/ /b/ /u/ /u/ nnnn /ch/. Hmm, I didn’t hear the /e/ sound of someone that can’t hear well. Now you try. If you hear e= /e/, I want you to cup your hand to your ear, and if you don’t hear /e/ shake your head to say “No.” Is it in: Pet? Rain? Bed? Fell? Nose?

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3. Say: Let’s take a look at the spelling of /e/. [write e on the board] A way to spell /e/ is with the letter e [point to letter]. What if I wanted to spell the word stretch? [Provide this sample sentence] When I stretch my legs, I try to touch my toes. To spell stretch in letterboxes, I need to know how many sounds, or phonemes, the word has. To find the sound count, I need to expand the word and count what I hear. Listen to what I hear: /s/ /t/ /r/ /e/ /ch/. How many sounds did you hear? That’s right—nice job! I heard 5 sounds, so we need to place down 5 boxes [project 5 letterboxes on board]. I heard /e/ near the end, so I’m going to put e in the fourth box. The word starts with /s/, so I need to place the letter s in the 1st box. Let me say the sounds one more time, so I can think about it: /s/ /t/ /r/ /e/ /ch/. After /s/, the next sound I hear is /t/, so I need to put ticking t in the 2nd box. I hear another sound before the /e/, it’s a growling /r/ sound, which I know is the letter r. So, I’m going to put an r in the third box. Finally, I hear /ch/ at the end, so in this word I am going to put t, c, and h in the 5th box. When t, c, and h are together they make a /ch/ sound, like in the words stretch and fetch. Let’s sound out each letter in the boxes and blend them together to see if we spelled stretch correctly: /s/ /t/ /r/ /e/ /ch/, stretch! [Point to each letter in boxes when stretching out & blending the word.]

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4. Say: Now, y’all get to spell words in your own letterboxes! You’ll start out easy with 2 boxes for the word egg. Like, “The hen laid an egg this morning.” 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. [watch progress.] It is important to note that egg has two g’s that go in the 2nd box together. The next word will need 3 letterboxes. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the 1st box. Then, listen for where the /e/ is. The word is red, like “I borrowed John’s red colored crayon” [let children spell words]. Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in letterboxes on the board: r – e - d and check if you have spelled it the same way. For the next word, listen to see if you hear /e/ in it before you spell it: map--“The boy used a paper map to help guide his way home.” Did you need a short vowel e? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear the man saying “Ehh, it’s hard to hear you?” [cup your ear when saying this]. We spell it with our short vowel a that cries like a baby. [call a volunteer to spell it in letterboxes on front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word. Repeat 3 box process with the word well] Now let’s try some with 4 phonemes: chest, like “I felt a sharp pain in my chest.”  [call volunteer to spell on front board. Repeat with speck, drag, fret. Make sure to have example sentences for each word] Now, let’s try 5 phonemes: stress, like “The test put him under a lot of stress.” Remember to stretch it out! [repeat with blend].

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5. Say: Now, y’all are going to read the words you have spelled. First, I’ll show you how I read a challenging word. [Display poster with stress on the top and model reading the word.] First, I see there’s an e in the middle; that tells me I will say /e/ in the word. 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//t/ = /st/ + /r/ = /str/. Now I’m going to blend that with /e/ = /stre/. Now all I need is the end, /s/ = /stres/. Stress; 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.]

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6. Say: You’ve done a nice job reading words with our new vowel correspondence e= /e/. Next, we are going to read a decodable book called Get the Pets. [Give a booktalk] Tam is a little girl that has a pet bunny, and she has two older brothers, Tom and Don. Tom has ten baby chicks! One day, he leaves the cage open when he is feeding them, and they all run out! What are Tam and Tom going to do to get back the pet chicks?? You will have to read to find out! Take turns reading Get the Pets with the person beside you to find out what the siblings do! [students take turns reading alternate pages with the student beside them, while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, class rereads book aloud together, stopping between page turns to discuss plot].

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7. Say: That was a fun story! What did Tom do to get his chicks back into their pen? Right, he grabbed a net. How does Don get rid of the snake? Right, he got some men to come get the snake. Before we finish up with our lesson on short vowel e, I want to see how you can solve some reading problems. On this worksheet, there are groups of words that all have the same ending; there is an image beside each group. Your job is to read the box of words, choose the correct ending they all share, and write a new word that describes the picture. The word you write must have the same ending as the other words and contain the correspondence e=/e/. Reread your answers to see if they make sense. [collect worksheets for formative assessment]

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Assessment:

• worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/meet-word-family-short-e/

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Resources:

• Book: Miller, Wayne. Get the Pets. Learning Page, Inc, 2005.

• Laura Sims, Creaky Door E: https://lauravlsims.wixsite.com/mssimsreadinglessons/beginning-reading

• Reading Genie website: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/brockel.html

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