Open the Door with short e!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Beginning Reading Lesson Design

By Caroline Kester

I really like that children can  pair up and enjoy reading a book togehter in this lesson. 

Rationale: 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 (eh, like a creaky old door), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondencee=/e/. 

Materials: Graphic image of door opening; cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher:a, b, d, e, h, l, m, n, p, s, t.; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: bed, pet, mess, step, blend; decodable text: Red Gets Fed,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. Today we are going to learn about short e signal that is used to make the /e/ sound. When I say /e/ I think of a creaky old door [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/ and feel my mouth stretch to the sides while I say it. [Make vocal gesture for /e/.] I’ll show you first: bed. I heard /e/ and I felt my lips stretch to the sides [make the mouth movement for /e/]. There is a short e in bed/. Now I’m going to see if it’s in hat. Hmm, I didn’t hear /e/ and my lips didn’t stretch to the sides. Now you try. If you hear /e/ say, “there’s a creaky old door.” If you don’t hear /e/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in pet, mug, mess, big? [Have children stretch their mouth out when they hear /e/.] 

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /e/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /e/ is with the letter e. [Write e on the board] This is the letter e. What if I want to spell the word shell? “I found a shell by the ocean.” To spell shell in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /sh//e//ll//.  I need 3 boxes. I heard that /e/ just before the /ll/ so I’m going to put an e in the 2ndbox. The word starts with /sh/, that sound is made with an s and an h.; Now it gets a bit easier, /sh//e//ll/. I think I heard /e/ right after /sh/ so it will stay in my second letterbox.I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /sh//e//ll/.] The missing one is /ll/=ll. 

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with three boxes for pet. A pet is an animal that lives with people. 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 three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /e/. Here’s the word: mess, I made a mess in my room. [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: m– e – s– s and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: bed; I sleep in a bed. [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. Listen to see if this word has /e/ in it before you spell it: hat,my grandmother has a pink hat. Do you need an e? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear the creaky old door. We spell it with our short vowel a. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Now let’s try 4 phonemes: step; the baby took his first step. One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: blend; When I make a smoothie, I blend fruit together. Remember to stretch it out to get this tough word. 

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 shell on the top and model reading the word.] First I see there’s an s and an h. 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//h/ = /sh/ Now I’m going to blend that with /e/ = /she/. Now all I need is the end, /l/ = /ll/ =/shell/. Shell; 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.] 

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /e/: e. Now we are going to read a book called Red Gets Fed.This is a story of a pet dog who is very hungry one morning. All of his owners are asleep in bed. What will Red do to get fed? We will have to read to find out. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Red Gets Fed to find out what Red will do. [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 Red Gets Fed aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.] 

7. Say: That was a fun story. What did Red do? Right, he tricked two people into feeding him. How many times did he get fed? Right, twice. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /e/ = e, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, you will build short e words and then write them. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.] 

 References: 

Book: Cushman, S.  (1990) Red Gets Fed. Carson, CA Educational Insights.

Assessment Worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/read-and-find-short-e/

 

Morganne Cieslak, Ehhh, What’s Up, Short e? https://mec0057.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/beginning-reading