Open Wide and say
Beginning Reading Literacy Design
Sarah Lynn Cowart
Rationale: Students who show reading fluency are on the road to reading comprehension. This enables them to become fluent readers. Students who can recognize the letter correspondences are defined as fluent readers. In this lesson, students will learn to recognize the o=/o/ correspondence. This correspondence will be enhanced by spelling and reading words with the /o/ sound.
Materials: Elkonin squares, letter
manipulative: a, d, n, o, t, m, d, s, p, i, t, r, g, l, c., primary
paper, pencils, In the Big Top. Educational Insights:
1.) Introduce the lesson. “Today boys and girls we are going to talk about a certain letter that makes a certain sound. The letter is o. Can anyone tell me what this letter sounds like? Good! That’s right a makes the /o/ sound.”
2.) “Have you ever been to the doctor? What sound does the doctor ask you to make when you open your mouth wide? That’s right o-o-o. When you open your mouth you say the sound for the letter o. Let’s all see if we can open our mouths wide and say /o/. Very good boys and girls, you guys are excellent at making the doctor sound.
3.) “Now we are going to try to say a tongue twister. Are you ready? Okay, here it is. Everyone repeat after me. Oliver had an operation in October, and Oscar gave him an octopus. That was great. Now every time we hear /o/. I want us to use a gesture so we can remember that sound easier.” We will pretend to press our tongue with our thumb like a tongue depressor would do when the doctor is looking at your throat. The students will practice doing this when they hear /o/ in the tongue twister.
4.) I will then take up the squares and spell the words they just spelled on the overhead. I will have the students read these words back to me. “Now boys and girls I am now going to say some words. Each time you hear a word with the /o/ sound I want you to do our gesture like the doctor does. If you don’t hear the /o/ sound I want you to say…Awe Shucks! Octopus, October, cookie, bet, zipper, nap, can, tug, slap, operate, ozzy, tricks, slob
5.) Ask the students to take out their primary paper and pencil. “Now that we know what o says, we are going to write out our o so that we can practice writing words that say /o/. Remember that when writing an o we start at the fence come around to the ground, complete the circle. Way to go boys and girls you are doing a great job.”
6.) Pass out the Elkonin squares and letters for each student. “Okay boys and girls now we are going to use our boxes and letters to spell out words. The first word I want you to spell out for me is /o/n. Very good!” I will walk around to check on students to make sure they are doing it correctly. We will continue on like this using the words, ad, hot, mad, nods, nap, sip, pit, drag, plan, scram, slop, stop, and trot.
7.) We will end this lesson by reading In the Big Top. Each student will pair up with another student and read together.
8.) For assessment: I will go around to each student’s desk. They will read for me nonsense words. If they can read these words I will be able to tell if they have mastered this concept. (Words: sprok, bot, sog, lod, nop, mox.)
Eldredge, Lloyd J. (2005). Teach
Decoding: Why and How. Pearson Education, Inc.
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