If you would like to reach out to me about any questions, comments, or concerns; I would love to hear from you at [email protected]!
Emergent Literacy Design: Let Your Yak Sleep for Y
Rationale:This lesson will enhance student’s learning to identify /y/, the phoneme associated with Y. Through this lesson, students will be able to identify /y/ in spoken words via a sound analogy about a yawning yak, along with the symbol Y. They will practice recognizing /y/ in different words, through hearing and visual cues, they will practice writing both uppercase and lowercase Y.
Materials:
Primary paper, pencil, drawing paper and crayons, worksheet and Yum, Yum Yamsfrom Reading A-Z, smart board, a drawing of a made up food.
Procedures:
Resources
Worksheet and book from:
https://www.readinga-z.com/book/decodable.php?id=30\
The above website has several other activities not used in this lesson plan that would be great help for anyone wanting to pursue further knowledge into the letter /y/ or wanting practice.
The following link goes to a fantastic lesson with a different approach on how to teach a lesson on y:
Regan Aymett: Y to i.
https://betterlesson.com/lesson/528400/y-to-i
Rationale:This lesson will enhance student’s learning to identify /y/, the phoneme associated with Y. Through this lesson, students will be able to identify /y/ in spoken words via a sound analogy about a yawning yak, along with the symbol Y. They will practice recognizing /y/ in different words, through hearing and visual cues, they will practice writing both uppercase and lowercase Y.
Materials:
Primary paper, pencil, drawing paper and crayons, worksheet and Yum, Yum Yamsfrom Reading A-Z, smart board, a drawing of a made up food.
Procedures:
- Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what different letters stand for. As our mouths move we make different sounds that come together to form words. Today we're going to work on spotting a new letter, /y/! We spell /y/ with the letterY.When a water bubbler in an office (show a picture of a water bubbler) fills back up with water it makes a /y/ sound and looks like this (wiggle fingers in an upward motion).
- Say: Let’s all pretend to be water bubblers, /y/, /y/, /y/ (pantomiming a water bubbler). Notice the way your tongue moves when you say /y/. The sides touch the rough roof of your mouth and then drops down.
- Say: Let me show you how to find /y/ in a word, I’m going to say the word in slow motion and listen for the water bubbler, yyyyyeeeelloooow. Slower, yyyyyyyyeeeeeeeelllllloooooww. Did you guys here the water bubbler? Where? Yes, at the beginning! We felt the sides of our tongues go up and down.
- Let’s try a tongue tickler. There is a small village that has a yellow yak. Most yaks are brown so this one was special. Everyone loved the yellow yak because he was so unique. They would take pictures with him and play with him all the time. After a while they would even bother him while he was trying to sleep! They would not stop and eventually kept him up all night. He has been so tired lately that, here’s our tickler, The Yellow Yak Yawned Yesterday. Let’s all say it a few times together. Okay now we are going to say it again but slow motion the /y/ at the beginning of each word and do the water bubbler motion with it. The Yyyyyyyyyellow Yyyyyyyak Yyyyyyyyawned Yyyyyyyyyyyesterday. Let’s do that a few more times in slow mo. Now let’s do it but break off the water bubbler sound. The /y/ellow /y/ak /y/awned /y/esterday. Let’s do that a few more times. Perfect!
- [Have students take out primary pencil and paper]. We use the letter Yto spell /y/. Capital Y looks like two lines coming together. Start at the top and draw two lines meeting together on the fence. Then draw a line from where they met to the sidewalk. Everyone make the Y and I will come around and check them. Alright now that everyone’s is good I want you all to make nine more down the line just like the first one. Okay now we are going to do lowercase y. In this one, the two lines are going to start from the fence and meet at the sidewalk and then you are going to slant a line from the sidewalk towards the first line. Watch me do it on the board. Okay you guys do it and I will walk around and check them. Alright they all look great, now do nine more just like those.
- Call on students to answer: Do you hear /y/ in yawn or lawn? Hankie or yankee? Yams or hams? Fork or York? Now let’s see who can see the mouth movements in some words. Do your water bubbler fingers when you see /y/: I don’t want yams on my fork yet, I yelled, my yak is not here yet. Notice the difference between the way our lips never close during /y/ but they do in /f/. We said to make the /f/, your top row of teeth grab your bottom lip and blow out, /y/ doesn’t do that!
- Say: Let’s look at the Yum, Yum, Yams book. The author talks about how the young girl only wants yams in a certain way. Soon we’ll read the book drawing out the /y/. What words can you all think of with a /y/? Let’s make up a crazy new food with a crazy name that starts with a /y/ and then we’ll all draw what that food would look like. For example, here is my made-up food, the Yeetle Yoodle (show a picture of a crazy food you drew).
- Show YOKE on the board and show how to figure out if it is yoke or joke. Say: The Ytells us the water is bubbling in the bubbler, /y/, so this word is yyyyy-oke, yoke. You guys try to come up with some words and we will find the Y in each of them.
- For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with the letter Y. After giving a book talk introducing the book as the story of a girl who will only eat her yams in a particular way, choose students one by one to popcorn read the book Yum, Yum Yams. Make sure everyone has had a turn with a fair amount of words per students and that can be used as a performance based assessment.
Resources
Worksheet and book from:
https://www.readinga-z.com/book/decodable.php?id=30\
The above website has several other activities not used in this lesson plan that would be great help for anyone wanting to pursue further knowledge into the letter /y/ or wanting practice.
The following link goes to a fantastic lesson with a different approach on how to teach a lesson on y:
Regan Aymett: Y to i.
https://betterlesson.com/lesson/528400/y-to-i
If you would like to reach out to me about any questions, comments, or concerns; I would love to hear from you at [email protected]!
Beginning Reading Design
The Crying Baby Lesson: A Lesson on Short A
Rationale
The students will be able to associate A with the short A, /a/, sound. The students will practice picking out the short A sound in words containing the –ad and –at sounds and many others along with guided practice, group, and individual practice. Through the visual of a crying baby, the teacher’s modeling of how to spell and read short A words, and practice; students will leave the lesson with a grasp on the /a/ concept. This lesson is intended to be most beneficial for students in Ehri’s partial alphabetic phase of reading.
Materials
White board, markers, erasers, Short A Sound worksheet, index cards, the book “Bat and Rat” by Patrick Jennings for each student, cover up critters, letter manipulatives, letter boxes, a word list, an overhead or doc cam
Procedures
Resources:
Boschen, Jessica. “Short A Phonics Worksheets - Short A CVC Words.” What I Have Learned, 21 Sept. 2018, www.whatihavelearnedteaching.com/short-a-phonics-worksheets/.
St Luce, Andrea. “Short Vowel Sounds: A | Lesson Plan.” Lesson Plan | Education.com, 24 June 2015, www.education.com/lesson-plan/short-vowel-sounds/?expiredSessionRefresh=true.
Bat and Rat by Patrick Jennings, Published May 1st,2012 by Harry N. Abrams. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13107377-bat-and-rat
The Crying Baby Lesson: A Lesson on Short A
Rationale
The students will be able to associate A with the short A, /a/, sound. The students will practice picking out the short A sound in words containing the –ad and –at sounds and many others along with guided practice, group, and individual practice. Through the visual of a crying baby, the teacher’s modeling of how to spell and read short A words, and practice; students will leave the lesson with a grasp on the /a/ concept. This lesson is intended to be most beneficial for students in Ehri’s partial alphabetic phase of reading.
Materials
White board, markers, erasers, Short A Sound worksheet, index cards, the book “Bat and Rat” by Patrick Jennings for each student, cover up critters, letter manipulatives, letter boxes, a word list, an overhead or doc cam
Procedures
- Sing through the alphabet with the students then ask them which letters are vowels and write those down on the white board, if necessary remind them what they are. Tell them “Today we will be focusing on the short A sound. Short A sounds like when a baby cries and makes the “aaaaaaah” sound. (Show them the crying baby picture) can you all make the sound it makes when a baby cries? We all need to know all about this sound to become expert readers because it is in so many words”!
- Then ask your students, “Do you hear the short A sound when I say rat or tree? How about flat or wide? What about nap or bed? Okay, now I want you all to repeat after me and if the word I say has the short A sound I want you to say it with your tongue out like the doctor is checking your throat. Pour. Hat. Mouse. Rat. Tap. Home. Good job!”
- Then ask students to list words that have the short A sound in them. For visual learners, write and/or draw the words on the board and label them where applicable.
- Then introduce to the students your letter box lesson for /a/. Tell them, “So now we are going to practice spelling words with the short A sound. To do this we have to find the /a/ sound in the word and then add the sounds we hear in front and behind it, let me show you. So if I were spelling “trap”, I hear t-r-a-p. So, I am going to put down my ainto the third box and in front of it I hear the t-r sound so I am going to put a tand an r in front of the aand now at the end I hear a /p/ sound so I am going to end it with a p. Now I am going to say words and I want you all to spell them individually while I walk around and monitor. Everyone spell “grab”. Now “slam”. (continue for “tank, crash, flat, stamp, blank, and scrap”) Good job everyone. Now I am going to show you guys how to spell a really hard word like “scratch”, everyone open up 5 letter boxes. So, I hear the s-c-r-a-tch. First I am going to put down my awhere I hear it, next I hear the /s/ sound at the very beginning so I am going to put an sdown in my first box, next I hear the /c/ sound so I will put that next, then I hear the /r/ sound so I will put the rdown next. Then the ending is a bit tricky but to make the sound at the end of “scratch” we need tchand they all make one sound together so they all go into one box together. Next I want someone to volunteer to try to spell “strand” (take a volunteer and fix any possible mistakes). Great job, now I am going to show you all how to read a tricky word like this. I see my aall by itself so I know it is going to make my /a/ sound. Now I am going to sound it out one box at a time, s-t-r-a-n-d, now I am going to keep saying it until I can make sense of it. S-t-r-a-n-d, st-r-a-n-d, str-a-n-d, oh strand! Okay now I want us all to read this list of words together (show list of words and have the class read it as a whole using the cover up critters to guide their reading of each word like how was just modeled with “strand”)”
- Write “ad” on the board and ask a student what they think it would sound like. If they do not know then help them to sound it out. Ask the students for examples of words that include the –ad sound. Then explain how changing the first parts of words with –ad can change the whole word. Model this by showing them that you are sad you fall off your bike but you would be mad if somebody pushed you off your bike and both sad and mad end with -ad. Ask them for individual examples and point out the short A sound in their examples. Repeat these steps with –at.
- Have students complete the Short A Sound Worksheet by coloring the pictures that are the word to the left. At the back have them think of 3 words with the short A sound and encourage them to make them ones that are not on the worksheet. As assessment, take them up and grade them.
- For further help, have the students make flash cards using a few index cards and practice with a partner.
- Review this lesson by asking students to say a few more words with the short A sound and encourage them to point them out in the book you are about to introduce.
- Introduce the book with a brief book talk such as “Bat and Rat are best friends living together. They love doing things together like riding public transportation, going through old restaurant trash cans, and making music. On a certain summer night, they become inspired by their favorite ice cream to write a new song. I wonder what the song could be about”! Have the students read the book individually, while providing individualized help for those who need it, and write down at least five words from the book that have the short a sound.
Resources:
Boschen, Jessica. “Short A Phonics Worksheets - Short A CVC Words.” What I Have Learned, 21 Sept. 2018, www.whatihavelearnedteaching.com/short-a-phonics-worksheets/.
St Luce, Andrea. “Short Vowel Sounds: A | Lesson Plan.” Lesson Plan | Education.com, 24 June 2015, www.education.com/lesson-plan/short-vowel-sounds/?expiredSessionRefresh=true.
Bat and Rat by Patrick Jennings, Published May 1st,2012 by Harry N. Abrams. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13107377-bat-and-rat
If you would like to reach out to me about any questions, comments, or concerns; I would love to hear from you at [email protected]!
Growing Independence and Fluency: Fluency with Fish
Rationale:
Fluency is key in order for learning readers to build efficient comprehension and a positive attitude towards reading. The purpose of this lesson is to increase student reading fluency via partner reads and read alouds. Key skills in building reading fluency is the improving of stamina and speed. Speed and accuracy is necessary in order for students to comprehend their reading as well as possible. Through this lesson, students will be motivated by confidence to build reading stamina and speed to encourage fluency.
Materials:
Procedure:
For assessment use their time sheets as a personal record of their progress in order to assess future lessons. Having these records will aid the teacher in knowing which students need extra help and which are very successful thus far. After they have done the one minute reads, ask them questions about the reading either on paper, or as a class discussion.
Resources:
The Pin with a Tin Finby Susan Hartley.
“Fluency: Instructional Guidelines and Student Activities.” Reading Rockets, 14 Nov. 2013
Rationale:
Fluency is key in order for learning readers to build efficient comprehension and a positive attitude towards reading. The purpose of this lesson is to increase student reading fluency via partner reads and read alouds. Key skills in building reading fluency is the improving of stamina and speed. Speed and accuracy is necessary in order for students to comprehend their reading as well as possible. Through this lesson, students will be motivated by confidence to build reading stamina and speed to encourage fluency.
Materials:
- Stopwatches
- Pencil and paper
- Class set of The Pin with a Tin Fin by Susan Hartley
- Time sheets
- Construction paper
- Glue
- Pictures of aquarium decorations (ie, pebbles, anemone, fish, diver)
Procedure:
- Begin the class with motivation and an intriguing book talk, something along the lines of “Okay class, so today we are going to learn how to read like big boys and girls. You all have been doing very well at reading, but today we are going to learn how to make it smoother.
- Introduce to students their “Aquariums”. Give each student a piece of construction paper and tell them “these are aquariums for everyone. For each attempt you make progress, you will get another piece to add to your aquarium (you can set personal standards for each student, the class, or let them build each time they cut their time down several seconds). The final piece you will get to add is a fish once you have hit 85 words per minute, this is your goal”.
- Read to them the title of the book “The Pin with the Tin Fin”, but instead say, “t-h-a p-i-n w-i-t-h t-h-a t-i-n f-i-n”. Ask the students if that sounded good, all of them should say no. Then say “so if I say ‘The Pin with the Tin Fin’, it sounds much better, right? This is going to be what we achieve today. We are going to read with fluency so it sounds good and we can be the most confident readers possible. We are going to practice using “The Pin with the Tin Fin” which is about a young girl named, Min. She gets a new pin that is in the shape of a fish with a tin fin. She is very excited about her new fish pin, until her dog comes in and changes things a bit, but I will let you guys figure out what happens. I’m going to hand out stop watches and time sheets to everyone and I want you all to begin reading, no louder than a whisper, until you’ve reached the end of the story. As you are reading, make a quick mark over words that you do not know or have a hard time with. When you are done, stop the timer, and write down how long it took you to read through the whole story. Then go back and use your context clues to figure out what those tricky words were”. Walk around and monitor to make sure each student is doing the activity properly.
- Once everyone has finished with the quiet reads, partner each student up and introduce their partner reads. Say, “Now we are going to do partner readings. This time you are going to time each other. Don’t stop one another for any reason. You’re going to do what you just did, but with a partner. (Bring up a volunteer) So if me and (insert student volunteer’s name) are partners, I am going to start the stop watch and they are going to start reading as smooth as possible. I’m going to let them read without interruption, but write a little note about which words they may make a mistake on. Then we will talk about it and the reader will go back and reread the words they have mistaken to fix them. Their goal is to read as many words as possible, as smoothly as possible. Then we will switch and I will read while they time me. Each partner is going to do each job three times. Remember to speak up loud enough for your partner to hear you but no one other than your partner should be able to hear you”. Then during a break or as they are finishing, calculate their words per minute using the equation: (wordsx60)/the number of seconds it took to read. As you calculate, individually tell each student their words per minute and how many aquarium pieces they can glue into their aquarium. Let them do this and walk around to monitor.
For assessment use their time sheets as a personal record of their progress in order to assess future lessons. Having these records will aid the teacher in knowing which students need extra help and which are very successful thus far. After they have done the one minute reads, ask them questions about the reading either on paper, or as a class discussion.
Resources:
The Pin with a Tin Finby Susan Hartley.
“Fluency: Instructional Guidelines and Student Activities.” Reading Rockets, 14 Nov. 2013
If you would like to reach out to me about any questions, comments, or concerns; I would love to hear from you at [email protected]!
Reading to Learn: Reaching the Moon with Reading and Summarizing
Rationale: Once a student is a strong reader, they must be able to reach a level of comprehension that allows their reading to become more practical. An excellent measure of this is summarization. When students are able to summarize, it shows a clear understanding for the information that has been given to them. The ability to summarize is also a life-long skill. When one comes home from work or school they do not tell every single detail of the day like how many stop signs were on their way or the color of the bus drivers shoes; you discuss the important parts. This is a skill that will be applied in everyday life as well as in school work and all types of career fields. The students will achieve this talent through the Kintsch and Van Dijk’s Summarization Rules. This is a very necessary skill for both reading comprehension and their lives.
Materials:
Procedures:
Sources:
Video:
Youtube. Bedtime Story for Children - Lily and the Moon.Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvZz823LyXU
Article:
Che-Mai Gray. Read Write Think. Get the GIST: A Summarizing Strategy for Any Content Area. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/gist-summarizing-strategy-content-290.html
Reading:
(2018, November 16). Times for Kids. Explore the Moon. Retrieved from https://www.timeforkids.com/k1/explore-moon/
Rationale: Once a student is a strong reader, they must be able to reach a level of comprehension that allows their reading to become more practical. An excellent measure of this is summarization. When students are able to summarize, it shows a clear understanding for the information that has been given to them. The ability to summarize is also a life-long skill. When one comes home from work or school they do not tell every single detail of the day like how many stop signs were on their way or the color of the bus drivers shoes; you discuss the important parts. This is a skill that will be applied in everyday life as well as in school work and all types of career fields. The students will achieve this talent through the Kintsch and Van Dijk’s Summarization Rules. This is a very necessary skill for both reading comprehension and their lives.
Materials:
- Smart Board
- Class set of TIME for Kids, “Explore the Moon”, https://www.timeforkids.com/k1/explore-moon/
- Construction paper
- Markers
- Pencils
- Computer
- Timer, either digital or handheld
Procedures:
- Say: “Okay class, today we will be learning a brand-new skill called “summarizing”. Does anybody know what it means when we summarize? Exactly! It’s when we talk about the important parts of a story. So, for example, when you get home, which event would you want to tell your family about; “Suzie and I played with a new student who was sitting all alone” or “We walked in line to go to lunch”. Exactly! You would tell them about playing at recess because it is more important and relevant to your school day and what means the most to you! Now I want everyone to turn to your neighbor and take exactly one minute to tell them about your weekend, I am going to set a timer and then you will switch. Remember to only talk about the important parts. When you summarize you have to get rid of all the details that don’t matter as much, as well as repeated details. Also, if you were to have a list of things, try to shorten it into a category. For example, if you are reading a story that says, “The frog, turtle, rabbit, fish, and butterfly ate lunch”, you could simply say, “the animals ate lunch”. You can do the same things with the way things are done. If your whole family came together for a family reunion, you don’t have to say, “My dad drove his car, my aunt flew in a plain, my uncle took a taxi, my other uncle drove his motorcycle”, you can have the same effect by saying, “My family all met for the family reunion”. Also, try to start with a topic sentence. If I were to tell you all about my weekend I would start off with a topic sentence of “I had a great weekend because I went to see my family, despite the rain”. This topic sentence lets you have a brief look into what I did and a problem I had completing my task of seeing my family. To help you remember what to look for I am going to write “no unneeded or repeated details”, “Shorten lists and same meaning words”, and “topic sentence” on the board. If you need guidance look at the board and I will also walk around to help. Once the first partner is finished they will listen to their partner’s summary of their weekend. Ready, set, go.
- Say: “Okay class, let’s all come back together. [call on students at random] When you and your partner were discussing your weekends, what color did they say their socks were? They didn’t? Why is that? Yes! Because it was not important to the story. Now let me ask you another question, who did they spend most of their weekend with? Was that an important detail to their weekend? Yes, it was! That’s why they told you. Without even knowing you guys all just made your own summaries”!
- Say: “So now that you all made summaries of your weekends, are summaries only used for stories? They can be used for anything, including real life events and even educational writing, like textbooks. So, in a reading we need to be able to be able to remove any unneeded or repeated trivia, shorten any lists or group of words with the same meanings, and have a topic sentence. I am going to show you guys a video and I want you to think about these three things while we watch. If you want to take notes I think that might be a good idea”. Then show “Bedtime Story for Children- Lily and the Moon” on YouTube.
- Say: “Okay now I am going to put you all in groups to discuss what you all thought was the summary of Lily and the Moon using the three key strategies we have on the board”. As they do the group discussions, walk around the room and pass out copies of Explore the Moon and a sheet of construction paper with a marker onto every desk. “Alright everyone come back to your desks and who can tell me what they think a good summary of the story was? (as a few different students tell their summaries correct anything that has been explicitly told not to include such as repeated details [ie a student says each animal name individually instead of saying the animals]) So now that we know how to do that in a group, let’s try it by ourselves. I put a copy of an educational article on your desks along with a piece of construction paper and a marker. So, what I want you to do is draw two lines on your paper all about the same distance apart to make three sections with your paper with the long sides on top (hold up a paper being held in landscape position). Then draw a line going the through all of them at the very top (draw along with them so they know exactly what to do). In each of the small boxes at the top you are going to write each phrase that was written on the board, let me show you. (write “kick out unneeded/repeated trivia”, “shorten lists and words with the same meanings”, and “topic sentence” into the three small boxes at the top). Before we begin reading the story, we need to go over some vocabulary you may not know. Can anyone tell me what a crater is? It is a large hole made in the surface of a planet when objects hit it. Does Earth have craters? We do have some, we can even see the moons craters when we look at it at night. Who can tell me what a phase is? Yes! It is a part of a cycle. The moon goes through phases, who knows what those look like? Exactly, sometimes we can see all of the moon and sometimes we can only see parts of it. Does anybody know what a mission is? It is simply something that you have to do. So, if I asked one of you to go grab me a broom because I spilled some sand, what would the mission be? To go get the broom, exactly! Now that we have some background knowledge as to what this is going to be about, go ahead and read the article and fill out your chart. You may have to read through it twice.
- Say: “Everyone’s chart looks so great! Now I want you all to pair up again and each of you will tell your summary of the article, you can use your chart for help if you need, try to start your summary with the topic sentence you created. [walk around to monitor conversations]. Great job everyone, now everyone pass your charts to the end of your rows and I will come pick them up! Now all of you can go home and summarize this mission that you completed to your friends and family!”
Sources:
Video:
Youtube. Bedtime Story for Children - Lily and the Moon.Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvZz823LyXU
Article:
Che-Mai Gray. Read Write Think. Get the GIST: A Summarizing Strategy for Any Content Area. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/gist-summarizing-strategy-content-290.html
Reading:
(2018, November 16). Times for Kids. Explore the Moon. Retrieved from https://www.timeforkids.com/k1/explore-moon/
If you would like to reach out to me about any questions, comments, or concerns; I would love to hear from you at [email protected]!