Beginning Reading Lesson

EATING AN APPLE LIKE /a/

Rationale:

This lesson teaches children about the short vowel a= /a/. In this lesson

students will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling

a=/a/.

They will learn a meaningful representation (person eating an apple- representing

the shape your mouth will make as well as the sound produced when biting

an apple). 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:

Primary paper
Pencil
Stickers
Journal
crayons/markers
Nat the Cat, by Cindy Garrett
Expo markers
White board access
Youtube video
Assessment worksheet (https://kdworksheet.com/short-a-worksheets-image-3800/ & https://free4classrooms.com/free-beginning-sounds-worksheet-short-a/)

Procedures:

Say: Our written language is like a secret code, which helps us communicate with each other. It is important to learn the letters made up in our secret code so that we understand what those letters mean. As we say those letters our mouths move in particular motions unique to those letters. Today we’re going to see how our mouth moves as we say /a/. We spell /a/ with letter A. A looks like our mouths when we go to bite an apple! Everyone pretend they are holding a yummy apple in their hands and take a bite. (show this yourself) See how my mouth looks as I go to bite my apple? Now we are going to add some sound to this. When we bite an apple we say ‘aaaaaa’ (pretending to bite the apple) this ‘aaaa’ noise is the noise A makes!
Now let's all bite into our imaginary apples and make the /a/ noise. “Aaaa”
Let me show you how to find /a/ in the word apple. I’m going to slowly say apple, and I want you to listen for the (aaa) when I say apple. Aaaaa-p-p-l-e Slower: aaaa –ppp-pp-lll-e There it was! I felt my mouth get really big, and open up like I was about to bite the apple.
Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. “Ally the ant loves alpacas” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /a/ at the beginning of the words. “Aaaaaaally the aaaaaaaaaaant loves aaaaaaalpacas.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: /a/lly the /a/nt loves /a/lpacas.”
[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. Let’s write the lowercase a, start at the roof and make a hump all the way down to the sidewalk, then draw a straight line from the roof to the side walk. I want to see everybody’s a. After I see your a, I will put a sticker on your paper, and then I want you to practice writing the lowercase letter a 5 more times.
Once you have written all of your lowercase a’s take out your classroom journal and turn to the next page. On this page draw a big /a/ in the middle of the page and decorate it as much or as little as you want.
Tell students to stand up if they can hear the /a/ in a word or stay seated if there is no /a/ in the word you say. Do you hear /a/ in cat or dog? Car or bus? Act or set?corn or cabbage? Map or leg? Bat or glove? Say: Let’s see if you can spot our /a/ mouth move in some words. Say (aaa) like you are eating an apple when you hear /a/: can, cup, mad, sat, pig, rub, hat
Next we will popcorn read the book Nat the Cat, by Cindy Garrett. “Nat the Cat is so hungry! Let’s find out what he eats for lunch…”
ext, conduct a letterbox lesson.
What if I want to spell the word hand? “I waved my hand high in the air.” In this sentence, hand means one of our hands being used. To spell hand in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /h/ /a/ /n/ /d/. I need 4 boxes. I hear that /a/ just after the /h/ so I’m going to put an a in the second box. The word starts with /h/, that’s easy; I need an h. Now I’m going to say it slowly so we can figure out the rest of the word, /h/ /a/ /n/ /d/. I think I heard a wave runner /n/. I have one empty box now. [Point to the letter in boxes when stretching out the word: /h/ /a/ /n/ /d/]. The missing one is /d/.
LBL goal is a= /a/. Word list: 2—[an}, 3—[fax, jan, leg, rib, rack, cap, dog], 4—[spot, grab, rest, span, frog, trap], and 5—[spent, scrub, flats].
After reading the story as a class, have the students pull the journals out one more time and have them draw their own cat and name it a silly /a/ name. Write some example names on the board, as well as your own example.
Lastly, show this video to wrap up before the assessment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE2T8P8kURo

Assessment:

For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the worksheet and turn it in as they leave the class for lunch. The worksheet will have the students look at cvc words as pictures and have the write out what they are (cat, ant, car). Next there will be images that also have the /a/ in them and the student is asked to color the images with the /a/ present. While the class is completing this assignment, call students up individually to make sure everyone is on the same page. Ask the student to write the lowercase a, make the sound the lowercase a makes, and then recognize the /a/ sound in words. By doing this it will give you an opportunity to make sure the students have absorbed the information given and assess where everyone is at.

Resources:

Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1990). Acquiring the alphabetic principle: A case for teaching recognition of phoneme identity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 805-812.

Bruce Murray, Brush Your Teeth With F: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html

Ameshia Cleveland, Icky Vicky Babysits Talking Timmy http://arc0035.wixsite.com/earlychildeducation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE2T8P8kURo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP1blVh1ZQM

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Short-A-Worksheets-Short-A-Activities-1955747

Cindy Garrett, Nat the Cat

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/geniebooks/teacherbooks/

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NattheCat.pdf

Worksheet

https://kdworksheet.com/short-a-worksheets-image-3800/

https://free4classrooms.com/free-beginning-sounds-worksheet-short-a/

https://rollmal97.wixsite.com/ctrd/beginning-reading