Ehhh? What Did You Say?

Lauren Sistrunk

Beginning Reading Design

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Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence e = /e/. It will help beginning readers understand alphabetic mappings by working through spellings of words and allowing them to construct and store spelling maps in their memory. This will keep students from relying on contextual guessing and will allow them to read fluently and effortlessly. In this lesson, children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling e. They will learn a tongue tickler and a meaningful representation by putting their hands cupped around their ears and saying “eh?” They will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson. They will then apply their learned correspondences by reading a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence e = /e/.

 

Materials:

• Graphic image of a man cupping his hand around his ear because he did not hear something

• Cover-up critter

• Whiteboard and marker for modeling

• Class set of Letterboxes (Elkonin boxes)

• Class set of Letter tiles (preferably plastic)

• Magnetic or smartboard letters for teachers

• Word List: 2 phonemes – {etch}; 3 phonemes – {bell, peg, back shed}; 4 phonemes- {chest, speck, drag}; 5 phonemes – {crept}

• Letters: e, t, c, h, b, l, p, g, s, h, d, k, r

• List of spelling words on poster

• Decodable text: Red Gets Fed

• Assessment worksheet

• Pencils

 

Procedures:​

​1. Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned about how crying baby a says /a/, and today we are going to learn the short vowel sound /e/.  Short e makes the sound “ehhh.” When I say /e/ I think of someone who could not hear what I said, so they say “Ehhh? What did you say?” Can you cup your hand around your ear like you could not hear me and say “ehhh?” [Show graphic image.] Everybody try!

 

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /e/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I say /e/ in words, my mouth is open with my tongue resting at the bottom of my mouth while the sides of my mouth stretch, and I make the sound in the back of my throat. [Make vocal gesture for /e/.] Let’s practice saying /e/ with a tickler tale. Eddie the elephant turned on his tv and wanted to watch a new show, but he soon decided he did not like it. Our tickler tale is: Eddie the elephant ended the episode. Let’s stretch the /e/ sounds. Eeedie the eeelephant eeended the eeepisode. Now you say it. Now I’ll show you how to find /e/ in words. Here is our first word: bed. I heard e make the ehhh? sound and my mouth opened and the sides stretched [make a motion towards the stretched, open mouth.] There is a short e in bed. Now I’m going to see if it’s in week. Hmm, I didn’t hear e make an ehhh? sound and my tongue did not relax at the bottom of my mouth while the sides of my mouth stretched, so there is no short e. Now you try. If you hear /e/, say “What did you say?” If you don’t hear /e/, say “That’s not it.” Is it in beg, cat, sped, deep, end, rip, red? [Have children cup their hand around their ear when they feel /e/ make its ehhh? sound.]

  

3.  Say: Let’s look at how we use the code to learn to read words with the what did you say /e/ sounds. We spell /e/ with e. [Write e on the board.] What if we wanted to learn how to spell the word fleck? “I saw a fleck of blue in his eye, like a small patch of color.” To spell the word fleck in letterboxes, we first need to know how many phonemes are in the word. Let’s stretch the word. So, we have /f/ /l/ /e/ /k/. It has four mouth moves so we need four letterboxes. I heard the /e/ right after /l/ and before /k/. So, I am going to put the e in the third box. The word begins with /f/ and then /l/ so I am going to place the f in the first box and l in the second box. So, as of right now we have /f/ /l/ /e/, and after this we hear /k/. At the end of short vowel-words, we spell /k/ with c and k so we will put those together in our last box. So now we have f l e ck (stretching it out and pointing at each letter) as our spelling.

 

4. Say: Now, we are going to spell out some words in letterboxes. You are going to start with two boxes. Our first word is etch. “I etch my name into the stone, like I carve it.” What goes in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers.] What goes into the second box? Remember, at the end of short-vowel words we use tch to make the /ch/ sound. I’m going to walk around the room and check for everyone’s spelling. [Walk around and observe.] For our next two words, you are going to need three letterboxes. Remember to listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box and then listen for the /e/. Our word is bell. “I heard the bell ring.” [Wait for students to spell the word]. Let’s check our work. Look closely at how I spell bell using my letterboxes: b – e – l – l. Did you spell it the same way? Did you remember to use two ls at the end of the short-vowel word? Awesome, now let’s try it with a different word. The word is peg. “The pirate had a peg leg, like a short piece of wood.” [Have a 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 the word has /e/ in it before you spell it. The next word is back like “I go back to class after lunch.” Do you need e to spell it? Right, you need crying baby a instead. [Volunteer spells it on the front board.] Did you remember to spell /k/ with a ck? Let’s do one more 3 box word. The word is shed. “I have a shed in my backyard, like a small building.” Remember /sh/ is one phoneme. [Volunteer spells it on the front board.] Continue this with the remaining 4 and 5 phoneme /e/ words and review words: chest, speck, drag, and crept.

 

5.  Say: Now, I am going to let you read all of the words you just spelled. Before we do that, I am going to model how to read a tough word [show poster with word spent on it and model how to read the word.] First, I see that the letter e is in the middle of the word so that signals it makes the /e/ sound. Now I am going to add my beginning letters s and p. Now I have s-p-e so /spe/. Let’s add our last two letters, n and t. Now let’s put it all together: s-p-e-n-t so /spent/. Oh it’s spent like I spent $10 at the store. Do you think you are able to do it on your own? [Show students on the whiteboard the words: etch, bell, peg, back, shed, chest, speck, drag, crept; pseudowords: jass, mext, pleft. Then have students repeat the words in unison. Afterwards, let every student read one on their own.]

 

6. Say: Everyone has done an amazing job at learning our new sound /e/! Now we are going to read a new book called Red Gets Fed. This book is about a very hungry dog named Red. He is also kind of sneaky. He wakes up his owner Meg and someone else too trying to get some food. Do you think Red gets some breakfast? Do you think he gets caught being sneaky? Let’s read and see what happens. If you come to a word you are not sure about, finish the sentence to see if you can figure it out. If not, use your cover-critter to break up the word! If you still do not know, ask your partner or me for the word. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternating pages while teacher walks around to monitor progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Red Gets Fed aloud together, and stops between pages and turns and talks about the plot.]

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7. Say: That was such a funny story! Did you notice how Red tricked everyone? Right, he got fed two times! I bet he felt full! Before we finish our lesson on e = /e/, we are going to do a worksheet. On this worksheet, there are pictures on one side and a list of short e words on the other side. Your job is to read the short e words and draw a line to the correct picture. When finished, you can color the pictures if you have time. [Collect all worksheets to evaluate their progress.]

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Resources:

Coltrain, Kaleigh. UHHHH, I’m Unsure!

https://klc0083.wixsite.com/mysite/br

 

Cushman, Shelia. Red Gets Fed. Carson, CA: Educational Insights, 1990. Print.

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Kester, Caroline. Open the Door with short e!

https://carrenkest.wixsite.com/mscarolinelessons/beginning-reading

 

Murray, Bruce. Making Sight Words. Linus Publications, Inc., 2012. Print.

 

Murray, Geri. Oh, I didn’t know!

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/murraybr.htm

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Shea, Caroline. /o/ Open Wide.

https://chs0025.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/beginning-reading

 

Assessment Worksheet: https://www.enchantedlearning.com/alphabet/matchwordsandpix/shorte/

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