Rationale:

This lesson will help children identify the short vowel correspondence e=/e/. Research shows that in order for children to be able to read, they must be able to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. That means gaining phoneme awareness is essential for beginning readers. In this lesson, children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing short e. They will learn a meaningful representation (cupping their ear with their hand) and will spell and read words containing short e in a Letterbox Lesson. After the Letterbox lesson, they will read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence e=/e/ and finish with an assessment worksheet.

Materials:

• Enlarged copy of a grandma cupping her ear

• Letterboxes and letter tiles for each student: e, d, h, n, r, p, t, l, s, b, i

• Enlarged list of letterbox lesson words: ed, hen, red, hit, send, best, slept

• Decodable text: Pen Pals

• Cover-up critter

• Assessment worksheet

• Pencils

Procedures:

1. Say: In order for us to become professional readers we have to be able to learn the secret code that teaches us how to pronounce words. I think many of you already know the secret ingredients that makes this code work…It’s the alphabet! Let’s think back to the first vowel we say in the alphabet, short a. We worked on that sound by pretending we tasted nasty medicine. Well today we are learning the second vowel we say in the alphabet. That’s right, short e! The sound that short e makes is ehh and I like to think of a grandma cupping her ear saying ehh because she can’t hear very well. (Show enlarged image of grandma).

2. Say: Before we get started with this lesson, let’s do some practice listening to words and see if we can hear that ehh sound in those words.  When I listen for /e/ in words, I hear that short e say ehhh and feel my mouth opening while my lips go back and my tongue stays at the bottom of my teeth (make vocal gesture for /e/). I’ll practice doing this first with the word bed. If I slowly go through each sound in this word, bbb-ehh-ddd, I can hear that short e sound in the middle of the word. Did anyone see how my mouth opened, lips went back, and tongue stayed down? Very good, I’m glad you noticed that! There is a short e in bed. Now let’s try the word hot. I didn’t hear /e/ and my lips didn’t go back. Now we are all going to try. If we hear /e/ say ehh and cup your hand to your ear. If you don’t hear /e/, I want you to cover your ears and say “no!”. Do you hear it in left or right, wet or dry, smell or hear?

3. Say: For the lesson we are learning today, let’s look at the spelling of /e/. What if I want to spell the word nest? “I saw a baby bird in it’s nest.” To spell nest in my letterboxes, I need to know how many sounds I have in the word, so I am going to stretch out the word and count the sounds: /n/ /e/ /s/ /t/. I heard four sounds so I’m going to need four boxes. The first sound I hear is an /n/ so I am going to put an /n/ in my first box. To figure out what letters go in the rest of the boxes, I am going to slowly say nest again /n/ /e/ /s/ /t/. After /n/ the next sound I hear is the grandma saying ehh so I am going to put /e/ in my second box. I definitely hear the /s/ sound somewhere, so let me figure out where that sound should go. (Go through the two letters already placed on the letterbox, pointing to each one and saying the sounds of the word slowly.) I hear /s/ after the /e/ so I’ll put that in my third box. The last sound I hear in the word nest is /t/, so I am going to place /t/ in my final box. Let’s sound out each letter in the boxes one final time and blend them together to see if we spelled nest correctly: /n/ /e/ /s/ /t/, nest!

4. Say: Now that we’ve gone over one example as a class, let’s work on some words in letterboxes. I will say a word and then give you an example of that word in a sentence. After hearing the word twice, you will try and place the right letters in their correct boxes the best you can. To get started, let’s begin with a short word that has two sounds, ed. “I am studying early ed.” Do you know what ed stands for? Well it’s a short way of saying “education”. Since this word only has two sounds we will use two boxes. Let’s slowly stretch out the word together to better hear those sound: ehhhd. Where do hear the grandma holding her hand to her ear saying ehh? That’s correct, let’s put that /e/ at the beginning of the word and then figure out what goes in that last box. That’s correct, /d/ goes in the second box! For the next letter box we are going to have to extend our letterbox to three boxes, because these next few words will have three sounds. Remember to listen for the /e/ in our word. The next word we are going to spell is hen. “I have one hen who lays eggs.” What is the first sound we hear? That’s right /h/, what do you think follows that? (Walk around classroom to observe what students are placing in their second box). I see a lot of you are using your hand gesture to identify that /e/ sound. Very good! What is the final sound you hear in hen? That’s right, /n/ is correct! The next word we are going to spell is red. “I have red hair.” (Allow children to spell word). Now that everybody has spelled his or her word, let’s check to see if you were right. Watch how I spell red in my letterboxes on the board: r-e-d. See if you spelled it right! Now let’s spell another three letterbox word, hit. “I got hit in the face by a ball”. For this word did you use an /e/? Why not? Very good, because we did not hear the ehh ssound that short e makes. (Have a student present their spelling to the class). For this next word we are going to need four boxes. The word this time is send. “I love to send letters to my friends.” Remember to stretch the word out, putting all the sounds you hear in the letterboxes. The next word we will do is best. “I have the best family.” Okay for our final word we are going to bump it up to five boxes! I know you all can do this! The word is slept.  “I slept for 15 hours last night!” I know those longer words can be scary, but remember to stretch it out to get through tough words. I know you are all so smart and can do it!

5. Say: Now that we have finished spelling all of our words, we are going to read them. Before we do this, I want to show you how I would read a tough word. (Display enlarged list of the letterbox words, but with the added word Stress at the top). First I see my e, that says ehhhh. I am going to use my cover-up critter to cover up the letter e and all of the other letters after it. /s//t//r/=str. (Uncover and smooth blend before the vowel, then blend with the vowel). Let’s add in that /e/ so we get /stre/. Now all we need to do is add in the end of the word /ss/. /stre/ + /ss/= /stress/. Stress, that’s it! Now it’s your turn to try together. (The entire class should read all of the words from the letterbox lesson together. Afterwards, call on individual students to read the words).

6. Say: You all have done a wonderful job working with the second vowel in our alphabet, short e! Now it’s time to put all of the hard work into something fun, reading a book called Pen Pals. This story is about a little boy named Ben who can not get out of his pen. Ben has an adorable little orange cat named Ted. His pet, Ted, can not get in his pen. All Ben wants to do is pet Ted. This makes them both very sad. Do you think Ted will ever get in Ben’s pen? Let’s read the story and find out! To make this more fun, I want you to read with a partner. One person should read the first page and the other person read the second, and so forth. Let’s be kind to our friends and listening carefully as each other reads. If you get stuck on a word, use your cover-up critter to help you figure it out. (Children read the book to each other as the teacher walks around and monitors progress. After individuals are done reading, the class will reread Pen Pals aloud together, and the teacher will stop between pages to discuss the plot.

7. Say: I am so happy that story had a happy ending, aren’t you? Good, I’m glad! Did Ted ever get to pet with Ben? That’s right he did! Before we finish our lesson with /e/ we are going to do one final thing. (Distribute worksheets and pencils). This worksheet has a few parts to it: you must say what the picture is and color it, circle the words in the box with the short e sound, and come up with your own words that have short e. (Collect worksheets to evaluate each child’s progress.)

 

References:

Laura Anderson, The Creaky Door Says Ehhh!

http://gelatoholic.wixsite.com/reading/br-design

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Lauren Tolleson, “Ehhhh” Goes the Squeaky Door

https://sites.google.com/site/ltolleson2014/home/beginning-reading-lesson

 

Assessment Worksheet:

https://www.myteachingstation.com/short-e-sound-worksheet