Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence a = /a/. To be able to read children need to learn to recognize the spellings that reflect word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to read, spell, and recognize words with the spelling a. Children will remember a meaningful picture of “aaa” when they are scared. They will spell and read words that contain the spelling in a letterbox lesson. Then they will read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a = /a/.

 

Materials: Picture of a scared person saying “aaa”, coverup critter, white board, letterbox boxes for modeling, individual letterboxes for letters: f, l, a, t, s, h, c, m, d, o, k, p,  letter manipulatives, magnetic letters, list of words for reading and spelling: flat, cash, at, cat, mad, mash, tap, decodable book: Lad and His Pals: Lad and the Fat Cat, assessment worksheet (link in references)

 

Procedures:

 

1. Say: To become a good reader, we must learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Remember that each letter has its owns sound and mouth movement. Today we will focus on the short /a/. The short vowel sounds like /a/, like when you are scared you say “aaa”.

 

1. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /a/ we need to listen to it in some words. When we listen for /a/ in words, we can hear it say its name /a/ and my mouth opens wide while my tongue stays in place. [make vocal gesture] I am going to show you this sound first like in the word Hat. In this word, I felt my mouth open wide while my tongue remained in place. What about the word fake? In this word, you do not hear /a/. Now your turn. Say the word hat and if you hear /a/ say “aaa” and think of the picture. If you do not hear /a/ then say “there is no aaa!”. Do you hear /a/ in lap, set, sat, or rip?

 

1. Say: Now we are going to look at the spelling of /a/. We are going to spell the word flat like “The road was flat and there were no hills”. To spell flat in letterboxes, we need to know how many phonemes are in the word. Stretch out the word and count how many phonemes /f/ /l/ /a/ /t/. This tells me that there are four phonemes and need four boxes. I heard the /a/ just before /t/ so I am going to put an /a/ in the third box. I can hear that the word starts with /f/ so we know that the letter f goes in the first box. Now I only have one box left and I am going to sound out the word slowly and I hear the /l/ after /f/ so I am going to put the letter l in the second box. Now all of the boxes are full and we spelled the word flat.

 

1. Now I am going to have you all spell words in letterboxes. [Write the letter a on the board] We are going to start off with two boxes and the word at like “I am at school.” Sound out the word slowly and decide what letter goes in the first box and then what letter goes in the second box. Now I am going to check you guys spelling. There will be three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound which will go in the first box then listen for /a/. The word is cat, “I have a pet cat”. [Allow children to spell word] I am going to show you guys how I spell the word in my letterboxes c-a-t and see if you spelled it the same way. [demonstrate the spelling on the board and allow them to check] Now we are going to try another word using three letterboxes. The word is mad like “I am not mad”. [Have a kid spell the word in the letterboxes on the front board for other children to check their work with] I will repeat this step with each new word. The next word id mash and it has three phonemes like “I need to mash the potatoes.” [allow the children to spell the word and then check their word] The last word is tap and only has three phonemes like “I tap my foot on the ground when I get nervous.” [allow children to spell and then check their work] 

 

1. Say: I am going to show you how to read a tough word [display a poster with the word cash and then model reading the word] I am going to use my coverup critter to get the first part and slowly sound out the word. First, I see the /c/ at the beginning that makes ccc sound like when a stick breaks. Then I hear the “aaa” sound like you make when you are scared. Lastly, you can hear the sh sound like you am telling someone to be quiet. /c/ /a/ /sh/. Now it is the children’s turn to read together. [go around the room and have children read different words until everyone has had a turn]

 

 

1. Say: Now we will read a book from Lad and His Pals called “Lad and the Fat Cat”. There is a dog named Lad and a cat named Scat. Lad wants to lay on his mat but the cat is on it. This makes Lad very mad. The cat is too fat to move off of Lad’s mat. How do you think the cat will get off the mat? What will Lad do to move the cat? We will have to read more to find out how the cat got off the mad! [children pair off and read the book while teacher walks around, after children read in pairs, we will read it together as a class page by page and decode the words and recognize a =/a/]

 

1. Say: Wow I cannot believe that the cat was still taking a nap in the bag! Before we finish up, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, you will write the first letter of each word. [I will call students one by one to my desk and have them read words individually]

 

References:

 

Geri Murray, “Oh, I didn’t know”: https://auburn.instructure.com/courses/1396676/pages/lesson-design-materials

 

Assessment worksheet: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/557250153886355210/

 

 

Decodable Book: Lad and His Pals: Lad and the Fat Cat

(I have copies of the book)