“Aaaaaa” Screams the Child
Rationale:
My lesson will teach children about the short vowel correspondence a = /a/. To encourage learning to read, children must first learn how to recognize the spellings which map out word pronunciations. By learning to recognize, spell, and read words that use the vowel a = /a/, the student will have the ability to read many words. A great way of remembering short a =/a/, is by using the representation of a little girl screaming “aaaaa.” With the help of a letterbox lesson and reading a decodable book focusing on short a = /a/, the children will spell and read the short a = /a/ words.
Materials:
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Gif of screaming child
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Whiteboard
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Projector screen
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Letterboxes for individual students
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Letter tiles for individual students and teacher to show example. (Letters needed: c, a, t, n, p, b, g, s, d, m, k, f)
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List of spelling words on board: 3 phonemes- cat, nap, bag, sad; 4 phonemes- mask, fast). Reading pseudoword: mal
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Decodable text: A Cat Nap
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Assessment worksheet
Procedures:
1) Teacher will tell the class: “Today, we are going to learn about the short a sound. When I say /a/, do you think it sounds like a child screaming “Aaaaaa”? Let’s look at our letters around the room and see what letter makes the sound /a/.”
2) Teacher will tell the class: “While we are learning about spelling words with /a/, let’s think about what our mouth is doing when we say /a/. When I say it, my jaw drops open and my tongue also goes down. (Show children what I am doing). When I say “mat” I hear the /a/ sound, and I feel my jaw and tongue going down. There is short a in the word “mat.” Now, together, let’s say the word “book.” Do you guys hear the sound /a/ in the word book? (Class answers no). You’re right! Our jaw does not drop and our tongues do not go down when we say “book.” Now, I am going to say a few words and whenever you hear the /a/ sound I want you to pretend like you’re screaming like a child. Remember that we are indoors so let’s not scream too loudly. Cat, pot, man, girl.”
3) Teacher will say to the class: “Let’s now take a look at the words we will be spelling today in our letterbox lesson. “She is fast when she rides her bike.” How does she ride her bike? Fast. When I want to spell the word fast using our letterboxes, I need to count out how many phonemes are in the word. This can be done by stretching out the word and counting the phonemes. /f/ /a/ /s/ /t/. This means I need four letter boxes. I hear /f/ at the beginning so I will put an f in the first box. Next, I hear /a/ so that will go in the second box. Let’s listen to the word again. /f/ /a/ /s/ /t/. I hear /s/ in the third box, and /t/ in the last box. Now let’s look at the word that I just spelled out. (show the list of words on the board). Now I am going to read the word mask (pointing at the word on the list). When I spell this word, I am going to start with the a letter tile because this part says /a/. The beginning letter says /m/ so that will go in the first box before /a/. The next sound is /s/ which goes in the third box. Lastly, I hear /k/ which would go in the last box. I just spelled the word mask!
4) Teacher says: “Now each of you get to spell out some words in your own letterboxes. You will each start out with 3 boxes. The first word we will spell is cat. I have a cat at my house! What letter should go in the first box? (Respond to children’s answers). Great! What goes in the second box? A does, good job sounding out your phonemes! What about the third box? I am going to walk around and check everyone’s spellings. Make sure you listen for /a/ in the words we are spelling. Next, we are going to spell the word nap. (give time for children to write the rest of the words on the board: nap, bag, sad, mask, fast)”
5) Teacher will say: “We are now going to read the words we have spelled, but first I will show you how I would read the difficult word right here. (Point to the word fast on the board). First, I see there is an f at the beginning. That tells me I should put the letter in one box since it makes one sound. Then there is my vowel a. It must say /a/. So far, we have /f//a/. Lastly, I hear /s//t/. This means we have an s and a t. When I slowly put together the letters from each box, I get /f//a//s//t/. I am now going to call each of you individually to read at least one word from our list to me.” (include pseudoword mal when reading)
6) Teacher will say: “You have all done a fantastic job spelling and reading the words using short a = /a/. We are now going to read a book called A Cat Nap.This book is about a cat named Tab and he is very sleepy. The cat likes to sleep in funny places. Let’s read about what happens while the cat is sleeping and his owner, Sam, is going to play baseball. We are going to pair up and take turns reading aloud A Cat Nap. I want you to stop between pages and discuss what is going on during the story.
Assessment:
Teacher will say: “Wasn’t that a great story? (Children answer). I am going to call one of you at a time to my desk to read two pages of A Cat Nap to me. I am going to pass out these worksheets so that while you are waiting for your turn, you can identify words using our new correspondence a =/a/. (I will listen and make miscue notes while they are reading. While I assess, the other students will be working on the worksheet.)”
References:
Gif: https://gifrific.com/kevin-mccallister-screams-and-runs-away-home-alone/
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Book: Phonics Readers. A Cat Nap.
Sami Moccia - “A Crying Baby Says Aaaaa!!!!” http://samimoccia.wixsite.com/samimoccia/beginning-reading
Assessment worksheet for short a = /a/: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/short-a-sounds/
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Allison Pittman: arp0051@tigermail.auburn.edu
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