Rocking Reading Rollercoaster
By: Summer Rose
Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence a = /a/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn how to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling a. They will learn a meaningful representation (when you ride on a rollercoaster, you throw your hands up and scream aaaa), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox Lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a = /a/.
Materials:
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Picture of children on a rollercoaster
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Cover-up critter
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White board and dry erase marker for modeling
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Letterboxes and lowercase letter tiles (a, b, c, d, g, h, k, l, m, p, r, s, t) for each student
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Magnetic letters for the teacher: a, b, c, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, p, r, s, t,
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Word list: at, mad, chat, lap, cat, glad, track, slab, wad
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A copy of Nat’s Cat by Reading A-Z (link below) for each student and yourself
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Assessment worksheet (link below)
Procedure:
1. Say: In order to become a great reader, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today we are going to learn about short a. When I think of the /a/ sound, I think of when you are at an amusement park and ride a rollercoaster. What do you do when you are at the tippy tip top and it drops down? You put your arms up and scream aaaaa!” Have the class pretend like they are on a rollercoaster, put their arms up, and scream aaaa like they are going down the drop.
2. Say: Before we learn how to spell words with /a/, we need to listen and hear the /a/ sound in different words. When we say /a/ our mouth is open, and we are making the sound from the back of our throat. *make a vocal gesture for /a/* I will show you the first: crab. I heard that rollercoaster /a/ and I felt the /a/ sound coming from the back of my throat while my mouth was open. There is a short a in crab. Let’s see if there is a rollercoaster /a/ in the word snail. I did not hear our rollercoaster /a/, did you? *let class answer* If you hear /a/ in the words I am about to say, I want you to put your hands up like you are on a rollercoaster, if you don’t hear it put your hands back in your lap. Do you hear /a/ in sat? Mat? Tent? Frog? Flag? Shirt? Clap? Jump? Snack?
3. Say: Now we are going to try and spell some words with our rollercoaster /a/ sound we’ve been talking about today. What if I wanted to spell the word flash? “The flash on that camera is really bright.” In this sentence flash is a quick bright light used when taking a picture. Now that I know the word, I need to know how many phonemes are in this word. So let’s stretch it out… /f/ /l/ /a/ /sh/. That’s four... So, I need four boxes! *draw four letterboxes on the board* I heard /a/ right before /sh/ so I am going to put the letter a in the third box. The first phoneme I hear is /f/, /f/, /f/, so that means the word begins with the letter f. Next, I hear /l/, /l/, /l/, which is the letter l, and that is going to go in the second box. After our rollercoaster /a/ we hear /sh/, /sh/, /sh/. This is tricky, what two letters make the /sh/ sound? *pause for a moment and let the students answer* That’s right! The /sh/ sound is made from the letters s and h. So, we know that goes in our last box because they make one phoneme. Now all of my boxes are full! Let’s sound out the word together, then read it: /f/ /l/ /a/ /sh/, flash.”
4. Say: Now I am going to have you spell some words with the letterboxes. We are going to start off easy with two letterboxes for at. “We are at school today.” What should go in the first box? *pause while the children answer* What goes in the second box? I’m going to walk around and check your spelling. Our next word has three boxes, make sure you’re listening for the /a/ sound. Our next word is mad. “She was mad when she had to go inside.” Mad. *give the children a moment to spell the word* Okay, now I am going to spell it on the board, see if you spelled it the way I did: m-a-d. Continue this with the words chat (three phonemes), lap (three phonemes), cat (three phonemes),glad (four phonemes), track (four phonemes), slab (four phonemes), have the students count the phonemes in each word together as a group before spelling. Model to the students in needed.
5. Say: Now, I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’m going to show you how I would read a tough word. *display the poster with scalp and model how to read the word.* First I see our rollercoaster a in the middle so I know that says /a/. I’m now going to use a cover up to get the first part of the word. *uncover the letters and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel* /s/ + /c/ = /sc/. Now I’m going to blend that with /a/ = /sca/. Now let’s finish up with those last two letters /sca/ + /l/ = /scal/ + /p/ = /scalp/. Scalp. That’s it! Now it’s your turn. *Write at, mad, chat, lap, cat, glad, track, slab and the pseudoword wad on the board one at a time. Have the children read all the words together. Then call on individual students to come up and read a word on the list until everyone has gone.*
6. Say: Everyone is doing such a great job reading and spelling words with our new spelling for /a/: a. Now we are going to read a book called Nat’s Cat. This is a story about a boy named Nat and his cat. One day when Nat and his cat are sitting on a mat, they both see a rat! Nat tells the cat to go get the rat! Will the cat catch the rat? I don’t know… we will have to read to find out. Let’s work with the person sitting next to you and take turns reading Nat’s Cat to see what happens to the rat. *While the children are paired up and taking turns reading the pages, walk around the room and monitor the students’ progress. Once the children are finished reading in pairs, reread Nat’s Cat as a class, stop between page turns to talk about what is happening in the book*
7. Say: That was a fun story! Did the cat get the rat? No, because the rat was someone’s pet. They ended up being friends in the end. Before we finish up on our lesson on a= /a/, I have this worksheet for you to do. First, I want you to color only the pictures with the /a/ sound, then you are going to read the words on the list and circle the ones with the /a/ sound, and finally I want you to write three words you can think of with the /a/ sound in the blanks. *When the students are finished, collect the worksheets to evaluate individual child progress*
Resources:
Geri Murray, Oh, I Didn’t Know!: https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/beginning-reading
Peyton Hays, Aaaaa! Spooky!: https://hayespeyton1999.wixsite.com/mysite/beginning-reading
Reading A-Z Decodable book, Nat’s Cat: natscat_clr_ds.pdf (weebly.com)
Despicable Me Gif: https://media1.tenor.com/images/04a988a9acc4af623b941f07b7c3ee17/tenor.gif?itemid=5894665
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