Learn E with Ed
Beginning Reading Design
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Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence e=/e/. In order to be able to read, children need to learn how to recognize spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson, children will be taught how to identify spell and read words that contain the short e vowel. Throughout the lesson, children will learn a meaningful representation (old man Ed who is hard of hearing says Ehhhhhh). They will spell and read words with the short e sound through a Letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that works with the short e correspondence.
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Materials: Graphic image old man Ed with hand to ear; cover-up critter, whiteboard or smartboard letterboxes for modeling and individual letterboxes for each student; letter tiles for each child and smartboard ( or magnetic) letters for teacher: a,b,d,e,l,n,p,s,t,w; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard for students to read; ed, web, bed, bat, sent, blend, spent,; poster with model reading word: trend for teacher to put on board; decodable book: Get the Pets; and assessment worksheet (listed below)
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Procedures:
1. Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today we are going to learn about the short e sound that says /e/. When I say /e/ I think of an old man who cannot hear and has to put his hand to his ear and say “ehhhhhh” (show the graphic image of old man Ed).
2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /e/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for the /e/ in words I hear the e say /e/ like old man Ed and my mouth stretches into a line. (Make the vocal gesture for /e/) I will show you first: red. I heard the e say /e/ and felt my mouth stretch into a line. (make the motion of your mouth stretching). There is a short e in red. Now I am going to see if it is in screech. Hmmm, I did not hear the short e say /e/ in screech. It made a different sound. Now you try. If you hear /e/ say “Old Man Ed” and if you don’t hear /e/ say “No that’s not it”. Is it in wet, bug, mitt, dress, meg, grab? (Have children make the mouth stretch for the words that have the /e/ sound)
3. Say: Now we are going to look at the spelling of /e/. We spell /e/ with the letter e (write the letter e on the board). What if I want to spell the word spent? “I went to the store and spent 5 dollars on gumballs”. In this sentence spent means you used money to buy something. To spell spent in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I am going to stretch it out and count: /s/ /p/ /e/ /n/ /t/. I need 5 letterboxes. I heard the /e/ just after the /p/ sound, so I am going to put the e in the third letterbox. The word starts with the /s/ sound. That is easy we know that is the letter s. The next sound is /p/ which goes before the /e/ and we know that is the letter p, so now we have /s/ /p/ /e/. Now it gets a little tricky, so I am going to sound it out really slow, /s/ /p/ /e/ /n/ /t/. I think I hear the /n/ sound, so I’ll put an n right after the /e/. I have one empty box now, so let's sound it out one last time /s/ /p/ /e/ /n/ /t/. I hear the /t/ sound at the end, so I am going to put a t in the last box. (Point to the letters in the boxes as you stretch out the word)
4. Say: Now it’s your turn to spell some words in letterboxes. You will start out easy with two boxes for Ed. Ed is the name of the old man who can’t hear. What should go in the first box? ( Respond to children’s answers) What goes in the second box? I’ll check your spellings while I walk around the room. ( observe progress ). You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for the /e/ sound. Here is the word: web, a spider will spin a web to catch food. Web. (Allow the children to spell word) Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: w-e-b and see if you spelled it the same way. Let’s try another with three letterboxes: bed, my bed is so soft. (Have a volunteer spell it in the letterboxes on the board and repeat for each new word.) Next word. Listen to see if this word has /e/ in it before you spell it: bat. I got a new baseball bat for my birthday this year. Did you hear the /e/ sound? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear the /e/ sound in bat we hear the /a/ sound that the short a makes. (volunteer spells it on the front board). Now let’s try 4 letterboxes: sent; I sent a letter to my grandma who lives far away. One more and then we are done with spelling, and this time you will need five letterboxes: blend, I like to blend my paint together in art to make a new color. Remember to stretch it out and blend to get through this tough word.
5. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you have spelled but first I want to show you how I would read a tough word. (Display poster with trend on the top and model the reading word) First I see that there is an e in the middle which is going to say the /e/ sound. There is the vowel e=/e/. I’m going to use the cover-up critter to get the first part of the word. (Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel) /t/ /r/ = /tr/ + /e/= /tre/. Now I’m going to blend the end of the word. /n/ /d/. /t/ /r/ /e/ /n/ /d/, trend. Trend that is it. Now it’s your turn, everyone, together. (Have children read words in unison. After calling on individual students to read one word on the list until everyone has a turn)
6. Say: You have done a great job with reading words with our new correspondence e=/e/. Now we are going to read a book called Get the Pets. This story is about Tom and Tam who are brother and sister. They take care of all of their different pets each and every day. They feed them, pet them, and make sure that all of their needs are met. One day, when Tom is feeding the pets, he accidentally lets them out and they go everywhere. Do you think that Tom and Tam can get the pets back in the pen? Let’s read to find out. Pair up and take turns reading Get the Pets. ( children pair up and read alternate pages while teacher observes. After pair reading, class will gather and reread together, and the teacher will make sure to talk before they turn the page.)
7. Say: That was a great story! It’s a good thing that Tom was able to get all of the chicks back into the pen! Before we finish our lesson on e=/e/, I want to see how you do with this reading worksheet. On the worksheet, it is going to ask you to look at a few /e/ words and find the ending that they all share. After you find the shared ending, you will write a word that describes the picture that also has the same ending sound as the sample words. Make sure that all of your words have the /e/ sound. (Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.)
Resources:
Reference: Creepy, Creaky E! By Kendall McKone https://kendallmckone1.wixsite.com/educationalportfolio/beginning-reading
Assessment (and Answer key): https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/meet-word-family-short-e/
Book: Miller, Wayne. Get the Pets. Learning Page, Inc, 2005.
http://englishworldschool.synthasite.com/resources/raz_d10_pets.pdf
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