Uhhh, Let me think! Learning U.
Beginning Reading Lesson
Rationale: This Beginning Reading lesson teaches children the correspondence of short u where u=/u/. Children must be able to learn the alphabetic mapping in order to produce words. In this lesson, children will recognize, spell, and read words that contain u in their spelling. They will learn a meaningful representation (a person thinking, saying uhhh?), spell and read words containing this spelling in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable books that focuses on u=/u/.
Materials: Picture of man thinking, cover up critter, whiteboard or smartboard, elkonin boxes for modeling, elkonin boxes for each student, letter manipulatives for each students: a, c, d, g, h, k, n, p, r, s, t, u, list of spellings words on poster or whiteboard: up, shut, mat, tug, hush, truck, strut, decodable book: Bud the Sub, and an assessment worksheet (included below).
Procedures:
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Say: In order to be expert readers, we need to learn the alphabetic code, which tells us how we pronounce words. We have already learned some short vowels like a says bat. Today we are going to continue on and learn how u says /u/. When I say /u/, I picture a person thinking saying “Uhhh, let me think” after a person asks him a question. Let’s look at this picture. (show graphic of thinking man).
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Say: But before we learn about spelling with /u/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /u/ in words, I hear u say /u/ when I open my mouth and the back of my throat makes vibrations and send them forward. I’ll show you first: bug. I heard /u/ in bug when I opened my mouth and separated my lips and sent the vibrations forward through my mouth. There is u in bug because I heard the /u/. Now I will check and see if it is in mop. I didn’t hear the /u/ like the man says when he is thinking, and my lips didn’t spread up like they do when I say /u/. Now you try. Say “uhhh, let me think” if you hear /u/ in these words, and if you don’t, say “that’s not right.” Is it in meat, shrug, ball, bump, stung, pal? [have students point to their top and bottoms lips when the feel /u/]
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Say: now we are going to look at the spelling of /u/. We spell /u/ with the u in between two consonants (teacher writes u on the board). What do I do if I want to spell shut? “After he walked in the room, he shut the door.” Shut in this sentence means to close. To spell shut, I need to know how many phonemes I have in the words so I will stretch the words out and count: /sh/ /u/ /t/. I need 3 boxes. I heard the /u/ right before the /t/ so I will put /u/ in the 2nd box. The words starts with /sh/ so I will put that in the first box. Now I have my words shut. [stretch the word out and point to the letters in the boxes as you say the word].
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Say: Now you all will spell some words in your own letterboxes. Start with two boxes for the word up. “Up” is a higher location. “The balloon went up after I let go of it.” What should go in our first box? {Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? I’ll walk around the room and check everyone’s spelling. [Observe progress]. You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /u/ . The word is tug, the boy gave his dog a tug on the leash; tug. [Allow children to spell word]. Time to check your work. See how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board; t-u-g and make sure you have it spelled the same way. Let’s try another with the three boxes: hush. The mom looked at her children and told them to hush while at the service; hush. [Have a volunteer spell it in the letterboxes on the front board for children to check their work and repeat this step with each new word]. Next word, and be sure to listen for the /u/: mat; “The girl put out a mat in front of her house.” Did you hear the /u/? No, we heard /a/ so that is why we put the a. [volunteer spells on board]. Now we are going to do 4 phonemes: truck; “the truck drove down the hill.” Did you remember that the /k/ is spelled with a ck? Now let’s do a word with 5 phonemes: strut, “the girl walked down the street with a strut.” Stretch out the word.
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Say: Now I am going to let you read all the words you spelled, but first I’ll show you how I will read this tough words. [Display poster with shut on the top and model reading the word]. First, I see just a u surrounded by consonants so I know it will say /u/. I will cover up the first part [uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel]. Sh=/sh/. Now I will blend the /u/ so now I have /shu/. Now I add on the end, /t/ = /shut/. Shut, that is the word. Now it is your turn, everyone read together. [Have children read the words in unison, afterword, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has read].
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Say: You’ve done a great job reading words with our spelling /u/: u. Now we are going to read a book called . This is a story of a sub named bud. Look at the sub in the water. This is Gus and he in charge of the sub. Look at the sub go down into the water, but oh no! The sub hit a boat and there is a man on that boat. Let’s keep reading to find out what happens. Let’s pair up and read . [children pair and red alternate pages while the teacher walks around the room and monitors, after the class reads the book aloud together, and stops between pages to discuss the plot].
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Say: that was a good book. What happened to the man who was on the tug? Yes, he jumped to safety on the sub. What happened to the tug? Yes, the sub pulled the tug behind it to safety as well. Before we finish discussing how u says /u/, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, read every sentence and circle the word that makes the /u/ sound. Then write it on the line. [collect all worksheets and evaluate the progress of each child].
Resources:
Guyette, Gabrielle, Icky, Sticky, Lollipop. https://gabrielleguyettelessondesign.weebly.com/beginning-reading.html
Brennan, Isabelle, Grunt Like a Caveman
http://isabellebrennan.wixsite.com/keylessonsinreading/beginning-reading
Phonics Readers, Bud the Sub
Assesment: What Begins with U? worksheet, http://www.schoolexpress.com/fws/ws/phonics/vowels/shortu08.pdf
