Rationale: This lesson teaches children the short vowel correspondences u=/u/. 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, read and spell words containing the letter U. They will learn a meaningful representation by saying “Uhhh… What did you say?” to emphasize the /u/ sound, they will spell and reads the words containing this spelling in a letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence u=/u/.

 

 

Materials: Picture yourself sitting with your friends in the lunchroom, they are all talking, it’s so loud around you so you say... “uhhh... what did you say?”

A cover up critter, a whiteboard for individual use and modeling, letter tiles for the teacher: e,f,l,m,n,t,u, List of spelling words on board to read: put, lug, chug, stunk, trunk/ Decodable text:” Great Day for Up” By: Dr. Seuss. Assessment worksheet/

 

Procedures: 1. Say “To become a great reader, we must learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Who in here likes codes that help us figure out how to do different things like reading? I know I do! Today we are going to learn about short U. When I say /U/ I think of being confused and not being able to hear because I don’t know what is going on or what the answer is. When that happens, we say “/u/” but we drag out the sound because we are confused and do not understand (pronounced like “uhhhhh.”) I will show the picture of a confused kid sitting by their friends in a large room filled with lots of people (lunchroom) and ask the students to say /u/.”

 

2.  Say “before we learn about the spelling of /u/, we need to listen and hear the sounds /u/ in words. When we say /u/ our mouths are open, our tongue sits at the bottom of our mouths, and we make the sound from the back of our throats [make the sound and show gesture]. I’ll show you first: fun. I heard /u/ sounding confused and I felt my mouth open and my tongue flatten on the bottom of my mouth. There is a short u in fun. Let’s see if we hear short u in mute. Uh oh, I didn’t hear the confused like a student makes in a loud room when they can’t hear in mute, did you? If you hear /u/ in these next few words I’m going to say out loud, I want you to put your hand up by your ear like you are gesturing to someone you can’t hear them. Do you hear /u/ in puck or poke? Fun or ran? Luck or lick? Make or puck? Trunk or tank? Clang or chug?

 

3. “Now how about we start using the code to learn how to read. Let’s learn how to spell words that have the confused /u/ sound that we are learning about today! What if I want to spell the word tug? First, I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word tug so I stretch it out and count: /t/u/g/. I need 3 boxes. I heard that confused sound of /u/ just before the /g/ so I am going to put a /u/ in the second box. The word starts with /t/, so I need to put a t in the first box right in front of the u box. [show the letters in the boxes when stretching out the word]. Now let’s read this word together. /t/u/g/, tug! Awesome job!

 

4. Say “Now I am going to have you spell some words in the letterboxes. You’ll start out with two boxes. The ball was thrown ‘up’ in the air..up. What should go in the first box? What goes in the second letter box? I’m going to be checking your spelling as I walk around the room. [check]. You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word I am giving you to spell. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box and then listen for the confused /u/. The puck was hit across the ice; puck. [Allow children to spell the word and check to see if they put ‘ck’ in the same letter box. Model on the board if needed. Then have the students spell: luck, punt, grunt, put, gut.] 

 

 

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 I am stuck on. [ show on board the word ‘trunk’ and model reading the word.] This is how I would know how to read the word without the letterboxes. I start by covering up every letter except the /u/ in the muddle, we learned today that the /u/ makes the confused friend sound and it makes me want to cup my hand to my ear so I can hear what is going on. Everyone act confused as if you can’t hear what your friend is saying with me, uhhhhhh, what did you say? Next, I know that the word starts with the letter t which makes the /t/ sound. We then see the letter r, which makes the /r/ sound. After the /u/ sound, I see the letter n which makes the /n/ sound so now I have /t/r/u/n/. Finally, I add the last sound, /k/ this is the last letter in the word. So now I have /t/r/u/n/k/.” [Show more words: pump, stunk, put, chug, on the board. Have the students read words all together. Afterwards, call on individual students to read one word on the list until everyone in the class has gone.]

 

6. Say: “Since everyone has done such an excellent job at reading words with our new spelling /u/=u. Now we are going to read a book called “Great Day for Up”. The book is all about getting UP for your day. Lift “up” your ears rabbits, the sun gets up, telling all the animals around the world to get up, because it is going to be such a great day! [ Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while the teacher walks around the room and monitors progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads “Great Day for Up” aloud together and stops between pages to discuss what is going on.]

 

7. Assessment: Say: “On this worksheet, there are rows of different words that you will read aloud. Using what we learned today, find and color the pictures that have the /u/ sound in the row. Use those pictures as a guide to help you choose what word fits best to describe the picture shown. Then after coloring in each picture that has the /u/ sound, write it out the word for practice.” [Collect worksheets and evaluate each individual students’ progress and see where you need to go on from there.]

 

 

 

 

Assessment Worksheet: Color in the picture with the /u/ sound. Then write out the word. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_E0fDKYLQKAeTZWUEQ4YTN2WXc/view

 

 

 

Resources: Peyton Hayes: Ahhhh! Spooky!

https://hayespeyton1999.wixsite.com/mysite/beginning-reading