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Uncovering spelling!

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A Beginning Reading Lesson

By: Kristen Watkins

 

Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence u=/u/. In order to be able to read, student need to understand all of the short vowels first, because they are most common in beginning decodable books. In this lesson, students will learn to recognize, spell, and reads words containing the spelling u=/u/. They will learn a meaningful representation (the undercover spy girl), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence u=/u/.

Materials:  

  • Graphic image of undercover spy

  • Cover-up critter

  • Whiteboards for each student

  • Letter manipulatives for each child: c, f, g, k, l, m, p, r, s, t, u.

  • List of words on poster or whiteboard to read: fluff, stuck, slug, must, stump, trust

  • The decodable text: The Mutt and the Bug.

  • The assessment worksheet.

 

Procedures:

  1. Say: In order to become a fabulous reader, we need to uncover the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We already have background knowledge on short vowel sounds such as e=/e/, so today we will be learning short u = /u/. When I say /u/, you can think of this spy girl that is undercover! (show graphic image)

  2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /u/, we need to hear its sound in some words. When I hear /u/ in words, I think of the undercover spy and I feel the back of my throat vibrate when saying uuuuhhhh. For example, Under the bed I found my umbrella! I felt my throat vibrate saying uh, when I said under and umbrella. Now you try! See if you hear our undercover spy in the sentence “uuunder the bed I found my uuumbrella.”

  3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /u/ that we will learn today. One way to spell with /u/ is the letter u followed by a consonant. (write on the whiteboard) What if I spell the word fluff? In your letterboxes, we will separate each phoneme to stretch out the word. Count with me, /f//l//u//ff/. I hear four phonemes total! That means you will use four letter boxes. Did you hear the undercover spy when we spelt out fluff? I think I heard it at the u. Say, f l uuu ff. There it is!

  4. Say: Now you will all spell some words in your letterboxes. Start out with four boxes, and our word is slug. A slug is like a caterpillar or a worm. What should go in the first box? (respond of answers of students). How about the second box? (responds). Third box? (responds). And finally, what do we put in the last box? (walk around the room and check everyone’s boxes). Let’s move on to the second word, stuck. Stuck means you can’t move. Like when you step in gum and your shoe gets stuck! You will need four boxes for this one also. (allow time for them to spell and then walk around and observe). Everyone look at the board when you are finished and see if you spelt stuck correctly. (write on whiteboard) S-t-u-c-k. Did you hear the undercover spy when I wrote the /u/? Now keeping your four letterboxes, spell the word must. Like you must eat your vegetables! (Have a student volunteer to write it on the board). Let’s have another volunteer spell the word stump. This one will need 5 letterboxes. (volunteer spells word). Next word is trust. I trust that you will learn your short vowels! We also need 5 boxes for this one. (volunteer spells). Good job! I hope everyone heard the undercover spy in all of these short u words.

  5. Say: Now we are going to read the words you’ve spelt, but first I will show you how I would read a word. (display poster with word stump on top and model reading) I am going to use the cover up to find my undercover spy! I hear sss tt uuuhh mm pp. I heard it when I said uuhh! Now everyone say it together. (Have children take turns reading the list of words using the cover-up.)

  6. Say: Now that everyone has mastered the spellings for u=/u/, we will read this book called The Mutt and the Bug.  This is a story about a mutt who makes a lot of friends. The mutt starts out alone on a rug, until he meets some cool characters. Let’s read the story to find out who he meets! (pair up students to take turns reading the book to each other, then come together as a class to discuss it.)

  7. Say: I hope you all like learning about the mutt! There were so many words with our short vowel u. If you had trouble hearing when the undercover spy came out, we can go over the letterbox words one more time! (wait for student responses). Moving on to this handout, we will use the word bank at the bottom of the page to write what word goes with what picture. Let’s do the first one together! What is pictured in box 1? (wait for response). That’s right, it’s a lady bug, so write the word bug and then check your spelling in the word-bank below. (collect worksheets at the end and check each students progress.)

 

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http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/applications/

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Resources:

Assessment worksheet: http://wiildcreative.com/worksheet/short-u-worksheet.html

http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/phonwords.html

Lauren Miley, "Uhhh I don't know." https://smileymiley39.wixsite.com/lessondesigns

Decodable book: The Mutt and the Bug.

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