Beginning Reading
WEEEE Slides are Fun!
Long E lesson
Rationale: This lesson will teach students about the long vowel correspondence ee= /E/. Before students can read, they must be able to recognize spellings and be able to read words with this correspondence, and to work towards this, children will work on spelling, reading, and recognizing words with long E. Students will learn a meaningful representation (Weeeeee going down a slide), they will then spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence ee= /E/.
Materials: Graphic image of someone going down a slide; a cover-up critter; whiteboard or projected boxes for modeling and individual letter boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: s, e, d, p, w, n, t, c ; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: see, deep, went, sweet, screen; decodable text: Lee and the Team, and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
1. Say: To become expert readers we must learn the code that tells us how we pronounce words. We already have learned to read short vowel words with e, like pet, and today we are going to learn about long E and the ways to make E say its name, /E/. When I say /E/ I picture my self going down a slide and saying WEEEEEEEEE! [show graphic image].
2. Say: But before we can learn about the spelling of /E/, we need to be able to listen for it in some words. When I say or hear /E/ in words, I hear e say its name /E/ and my lips open and show all my teeth, almost like a smile. [Make vocal gesture for /E/.] First, I’ll show you how to do it: feet. I heard e say its name and I felt my lips open and show all my teeth [show how you can see my teeth through my lips]. There is a long E in feet. Now let’s see if it’s in pencil. Hmm, I didn’t hear e say its name and I didn’t feel my lips open enough to see all my teeth. Now you try. If you hear /E/ say, “weeeeeee!” If you don’t hear /E/ say, “Nope.” Is it in leaf, pain, tree, seal, duck, week? [Have students point out their open mouth and teeth when they feel /E/ say its name.]
3. Say: Now let’s look at the ways we can spell /E/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /E/ is with two ee’s. [Write ee on the board.] When e says it’s name in a word, one way to show this is to write two ee’s. What if I want to spell the word tree? “I went outside so that I could climb the tree.” To spell free in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes there are in the word so I need to stretch it out and count: /t//r//E/. I need 3 boxes. I heard /E/ at the end so I’m going to put an ee in the 3rd box. The word starts with /f/, I hear the toothbrush so it’s an f. Now let’s say it slower so we can find out what is in the middle, /f//r/E/. I think I heard a lion growl /r/ so I need an r. Let’s sound it out and make sure we got it. /f/ /r/ /E/. Free.
4. Say: Now you are going to spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for see. See is what we can do with our eyes. “I can see better when I wear my glasses.” What needs to go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? What about the double e? Did you remember to put 2? While I walk around, I am going to check your spellings. [Observe student 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/ and don’t forget to put 2 e’s in this case to make the /E/ sound. The word is deep. The submarine went deep into the ocean; deep. [Allow children to spell words.] Now we need to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: d – e – e – p and see if you spelled it the same way. How about another with three boxes? Peel; I had to peel the banana before I could eat it, peel. [Have volunteer student spell it in the letterbox on the front board and have children to check their work. Repeat this step with each new word.] Here comes the next word. Listen to see if this word has /E/ in it before you spell it: went; I went to a football game this weekend. Did you need two e’s? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear E say its name so we only needed one e. This means it was the short vowel e. [student spells it on the front board.] Now let’s do 4 phonemes: sweet; The candy tasted too sweet for me to eat more of it. Okay, last one and you need five boxes: screen; There was a screen on the window so no bugs got inside. Make sure we stretch out our word so we get all the letters.
5. Say: Now I am going to have you read the words that you just spelled, but first I’m going to show you how I would read a difficult word. [Display poster with screen on the top and model reading the word.] First I see there’s two ee’s; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. 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//c/ = /sc/ + /r/ = /scr/. Now I’m going to blend that with /E/ = /scrE/. Now all I need is the end, /n/ = /scrEn/. Screen; and we read the word! Now it’s your turn, everyone read our words together. [Have students read each word in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]
6. Say: you all did a fantastic job reading words with our new spelling for /E/: ee. Now we are going to read a book called Lee and the Team. This is a book about a boy named Lee who is on a baseball team. The team is late for a game and Lee can’t get his team to hurry. Lee tries to get them to go, but his team wants to sit in the shade. How do you think Lee is going to get his team to run to the game? Find a partner and take turns reading to see what Lee does. [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 Lee and the Team aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]
7. Say: That was a good story. Were your predictions right? How did Lee get his team moving? Right, he had them all run from a bee! Before we end our lesson about one way to spell ee =/E/, I want to solve these reading problems. On this worksheet, we have some words missing from the sentences. Your job is to look in the box of word choices, and figure out which ee word fits best to make sense in each sentence. First I want you to try to read all the words in the box, then choose the word that fits best in each space. Reread your answers to make sure they make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
References:
Worksheet:
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/EeWrdsWksht.pdf (4th one)
Book:
Phonics Readers, Lee and the Team.
Lessons:
Hannah Louise Perkinson, “Say weeeeee on the roller coaster!” https://hannahlouiseperkin.wixsite.com/bomblessondesigns/beginning-reading-design
Geri Murray, "Oh I didn't know!" http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/murraybr.htm
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