Beginning Reading Design: Big Yawns for short O
Rationale: This lesson will be teaching students the short vowel correspondence o=/o/. For kids to be able to
read, they must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson students will
learn to recognize, spell and read words containing the spelling “o”. They will learning a meaningful
representation, a person yawning, they will read and spell out words that contain this spelling in a letterbox
lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence o=/o/.
Materials: An image of a yawning girl with the letter O in her yawn; coverup critter; poster with the word
strong with muscles on it; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin letterboxes for modeling and individual Elkonin letterboxes of each student; letter manipulatives and magnetic or smart board letters for the teacher: a, b, c, d, e, g, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, and x ; list of spelling
words put on a poster or whiteboard for students to read: on, mop, bag, box, pot, top, pet, doll, plop, sock, strong and stomp: decodable text Doc in the Fog and Assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
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Say: In order to become expert readers we have to learn a secret code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned done this with short vowels such as a=/a/, e=/e/, and i=/i/. Today we are going to learn about the short vowel o and the sound that it makes, /o/. When I hear the sound /o/ it makes me think of a person who just got out of bed and makes a big yawn like this, “ahhhh” (show the graphic image). See that when she yawns her mouth looks like an o? We will be using this to remember the short letter o says /o/.
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Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /o/, let's listen to it in some words. When I listen to for /o/ in words, I hear a person say “ahhh” like they are yawning after a big nap. Another way to know you're using /o/ is that your mouth makes an o and air is released ( demonstrate vocal gesture). Now we will practice recognizing /o/ in words. I will show you first: stop. I heard the sound “ahhh” and felt my mouth look like an o while air was coming out, so there is a short o in stop. Now let’s see if it’s in the word stone. Hmm, I didn't hear “ahhh” and my mouth made a small o shape instead of a big o like a yawn. /o/ is not in stone. Now you try. If you hear /o/, cover your mouth and make a yawning noise, if you don't hear /o/ say “ no, no, no”. Do you hear it in mop, rat, box, drop, man, or stone?
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Say: What if I want to spell the word stop? “If I stop watching tv I can probably study for my test.”. In this sentence stop means to quit. In order to spell stop in letterboxes, I need to know how many phonemes are in it. You must stretch out the word to know how many phonemes you have: /s//t//o//p/. There are four phonemes in stop so I need 4 letterboxes. I hear the /o/ right before the /p/ so it will go in the third letterbox. The word starts with /s/, so it goes in the first letterbox. Now it gets a little tricky so make sure to say it slowly /s//t//o//p/. There is another letter before the /o/, I heard /t/ so I will put a t after the s. I have one box left. (Point to the letters while you stretch out the word: /s//t//o//p/). This missing one is /p/. Now I will show you how to read a tough word. (Display a poster with muscles on it and model how to read the word strong). Let’s start with the vowel in the middle; the o says /o/. Now let’s do the beginning letters, /s//t//r/. I add those together with the vowel and get /stro/. Now let’s look at the letters at the end, /n//g/. When I blend those together I got stro-ng. Oh, strong, like “ The strong man lifted the desk.”.
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Say: Now I will get you to spell some words in letterboxes. You will start out with an easy two letter word “on”. “When I walked into my room I turned on my lights.” Now you try spelling it for me and I will walk around the room and check your spellings. (Observe progress.) You will need three letter boxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound to spell in the first box. Then listen for /o/. Here's the word: mop, I use a mop to clean my kitchen floor. ( Give the children time to spell the remaining words, giving sentences for each word: box, bag, pot, pet, doll, plop, sock, and stomp.)
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Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you have spelled. (Show the words box, pot, doll, plop, sock, and stomp, the extra words frost and prop and pseudo word trock. Have the students read them out loud at the same time. Afterwards call on students to read one word until everyone has a turn.)
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Say: You all have done a great job spelling and reading words with the short o. Now we will read the book Doc in the Fog. This is a story about a magical wizard named Doc. Doc uses his magical powers to turn stuff into other things. These magical powers may end up getting him into trouble, you'll have to read to find out! Now let’s pair up to read Doc in the Fog to find out how Doc uses his magic. ( Children will pair up and take turns reading alternate pages, while the teacher walks around and monitors progress. After paired reading, the class will reread Doc in the Fog together and out loud, stopping between pages to discuss the story.)
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Say: Wasn’t that a good book? We are going to do one more thing with o=/o/ today. For this activity you will be given a worksheet . Draw a line from the picture of a word with a short o to the correct word . Read out the words that use o=/o/ and make a line to them. ( Collect worksheets at the end to evaluate individual progress)
References:
Paige Muller, Yawning With Short O, http://pkm0005.wixsite.com/teacherwebpage/beginning-reading
Overheads BR Design: https://auburn.instructure.com/courses/1071718/files?preview=111759655
Assessment Worksheet: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/alphabet/matchwordsandpix/shorto/
Cushman, Sheila. Doc in the Fog. Carson, CA. Educational Insights, 1990. Print.
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