A Beginning Reading Lesson

By Kaitlyn Benefield

 

Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence u = /u/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the short vowel correspondence u. They will learn a meaningful representation (confused Patrick saying uhhh?), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence u = /u/.

 

Materials: Graphic image of confused Patrick; cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard, Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: c, l, u, c, k, d, r, m, t, n, p, h, j; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: cluck, drum, trunk, punch, jump; decodable text: Fuzz and the Buzz, and assessment worksheet.

 

Procedures:

1. Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to

pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with o, like pot, and today we are going to learn about short u and the sound it makes /u/. When I say /u/ I think of Patrick saying, “Uhhhh, what did you say? [show graphic image].

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /u/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I

listen for /u/ in words, I hear u say /u/ and my lips are open and the noise is coming from my throat. [Make vocal gesture for /u/.] I’ll show you first: buff. I heard u say /u/ and my lips were apart and open. There is a short u in buff. Now I’m going to see if it’s in bake. Hmm, I didn’t hear u say /u. and my lips were not all the way apart. Now you try. If you hear /u/ say, “Uhhh what did you say?” If you don’t hear /u/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in club, rain, pump, coat, hunt, plush? [Have children tap their head like they are confused when they say /u/] Uh?

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /u/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /u/ is with

the letter u [Write u on the board.] What if I want to spell the word crunch? “If I eat chips I will make a crunch noise when I chew them” Crunch means a loud chewing noise in this sentence. To spell crunch in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /c//r//u//n//ch/. I need 5 boxes. I heard that /u/ just before the /n/ so I’m going to put a u in the 3rd box. The word starts with /c/, so now I need to decide if I need a c or k. For this word I need a c. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going to say it slowly, /c//r//u//n//ch/. I think I, heard /r/ so I’ll put a t right after the c. One more after the /u/, hmm . . . /c//r//u//n//ch/, I think I heard growling /n/ so I need an n.

I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /c//r//u//n//ch/.] The missing one is /ch/ = ch.

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with

four boxes for jump. “I love to jump on the trampoline” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? [Observe progress.] You’ll need four letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /u/ and don’t. Here’s the word: cluck, “The chicken can cluck loudly”; cluck. [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: c-l-u-ck and see if you’ve spelled it the same way.

Try another with four boxes: drum; I love to play the drum. [Have volunteer spell it in

the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new

word.] Next word. Listen to see if this word has /u/ in it before you spell it: rock; be careful

when you climb on the rock. Did you hear the /u/? We spell it with our short vowel o. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Now let’s try 5 phonemes: trunk; the trunk was full in the car.

5. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I

would read a tough word. [Display poster with cluck on the top and model reading the word.]

First, I see there’s a u; that’s my signal that the vowel will say /u/. There’s the vowel u. It must say /u/. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] /c//l/ = /cl/. Now I’m going to blend that with /u/ = /clu/. Now all I need is the end, /ck/ = /cluck/. Cluck; that’s it. Now it’s 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’ve done a great job and reading words with our spelling /u/: u. Now we

are going to read a book called Fuzz and the Buzz. This is a story of Fuzz the bear cub who goes on a walk to find a snack. He begins to pull on a tree for some nuts and bees start flying out. Now that the bees are mad at Fuzz what will happen? Let’s read to find out. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Fuzz and the Buzz aloud together and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

7. Say: That was a fun story. What happened to Fuzz and the Bees? Right, he had to run away from the mad bees buzzing at him. Before we finish up with our lesson about how to spell u = /u/, 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 u 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:

Worksheet: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/free-short-u-worksheets/

Uhhh I dunno by Dawson Williams https://dawsonannewilliams.wixsite.com/lessondesign/beginning-reading