"Aaaa" Goes the Crying Baby
Rationale: In order for students to learn to read, they must first learn vowel correspondences. This lesson will teach students about the short vowel correspondence “a=/a/”. To become good readers, children must learn to recognize words and their spelling maps. In this lesson, students will learn to recognize, spell, and read words that have the a=/a/ correspondence. Students will learn the meaningful representation baby that is crying, spell and read words that contain this correspondence in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a=/a/.
Materials:
-Graphic image of confused baby crying
-Cover-up critter
-Whiteboard or smartboard letter boxes for modeling and individual letter boxes for each student
-Letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: a, b, c, d, g, h, n, k, r, s, t, p
-List of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: dad, hat, nap, back, grab, mask, hand, tab, cat
-Decodable text: A Cat Nap by Sheila Cushman
Procedure:
1. Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today we are going to learn the short a sound. When I say /a/ I want you to think of a baby crying (show the moving picture to class). Now let’s look at which letter makes the /a/ sound.
2. Before we learn about the spelling of /a/, we are going to listen for it in some words. When I say /a/, my jaw drops, and my tongue is down (make vocal gesture for /a/). I’ll show you first, when I say tab, I hear the /a/ sound and feel my jaw drop and my tongue down. There is a short-a in tab. Now let’s see if it’s in book. I didn’t hear the /a/ sound and I didn’t feel my jaw drop and tongue down. Now it is your turn to try. When you hear the /a/ sound in a word pretend to cry like a baby aaaa. Is it in: cat, school, pat, splash? c-aaaa-t, schooool, p-aaaa-t, s-p-l-aaaa-sh.
3. Say: Now let’s look at the words we are going to spell today (write the letter a big on the board). What If I want to spell the word bat? “In baseball, you have to swing the bat to hit the ball.” Bat is what players use to hit the baseball in this sentence. To spell bat in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes are in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /b//a//t/. I need 3 letterboxes. I heard /a/ just before the /t/ so I’m going to put a letter tile in the 2nd box. The word starts with /b/, I need the b letter tile in the first box. There is 1 more box after the a. Hmmmm, /b//a//t/, the letter t is the only letter missing so I put the letter tile t in the last box. Now I will show you how I would read a tough word. (Write stack on the whiteboard and model reading the word). I’m going to start with the a letter tile; that says /a/. Now I’m going to put the beginning letters with it: sss-t-aaaa, /sta/. Now I’ll put that chunk together with the last sound c-c-c-k, /sta-ck/. Oh, stack like “That is a large stack of papers.”
s | t | a | ck
4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with 3 boxes. The word is cat, like “I have a pet cat.” C-aaaaa-t. What letter do you think should go in the first box? (Respond to children’s answers). What goes in the second and third box? (Observe children’s progress). Make sure you listen for /a/ in the word.” Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letter boxes on the board: c-a-t and see if you spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: dad; my dad just had a birthday (have volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word: dad, hat, nap, back, grab, mask, hand).
5. Say: “Now I am going to let you read the words you spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a difficult word. (Display poster with mask at the top and model the reading word). First, I see there is an m in the beginning. That lets me know it is my first letter box and I put that letter in one box because it makes one sound. Then there is my vowel a. It must say a=/a/. I’m going to use a cover-up critter to get the last part of the word. (Uncover and blend sequentially after the vowel, then blend with the vowel). /s//k/=/sk/. Now I’m going to blend that with /a/=/ask/. Now I will put everything together; /mask/. Mask; that’s correct! Now its your turn, everyone together. (Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn).
6. Say: You have done a great job reading words with our new spelling for /a/=a. Now we are going to read a book called “A Cat Nap”. Booktalk: Tab is a fat cat who is in a bag. He naps and naps. Sam is a man who has a bag and a bat. Sam ran to his friends and is at bat. His bat is in his bag. What does Sam find in his bag? Let’s pair up and take turns reading “A Cat Nap” to find out what happens. (Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages while the teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After the class rereads “A Cat Nap” aloud together and stops between pages to discuss the plot).
7. Say: That was a great story. What did Sam find in his bag? That’s right! Tab! Tab snuck in his bag and went to the game while he was at bat. What did Sam think was in his bag? A bat, correct! Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /a/ = a, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have some words missing. Your job is to look in the box of word choices and decide which a word fits best to make sense of this very short story. First try reading all the words in the box, then choose the word that fits best in the space. Reread your answers to see if they make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
Resources:
A Cat Nap by Sheila Cushman
Geri Murray: “Oh, I didn’t know!”
https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/beginning-readingLinks to an external site.
Sami Moccia: “A Crying Baby Says Aaaaa!!!!” http://samimoccia.wixsite.com/samimoccia/beginning-reading