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Say Cheese! 

Beginning Reading Design

Piper Belcher

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Rationale:

The literacy goal for this lesson is the song vowel correspondence ee=/E/. Children must learn short and long vowel correspondences in order to make sight words, decode, develop reading fluency, and phoneme awareness. This lesson will teach children how to read, recognize, and spell words containing ee. The term “Say cheese!” people use when taking a picture and image above will help children remember the vowel correspondence. In this lesson children will be taught a letterbox lesson with ee=/E/ followed up with a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence as well. After reading the decodable book the students will write a story on primary paper about whatever they want using the words they just reviewed in the letterbox lesson along with other ee=/E/ words. These will be listed in a word bank.

 

Materials:

Power point of any procedures noted/listed below, “Say Cheese” image used above, cover-up critters if needed, individual letter boxes, letter tiles, powerpoint or slide show with the image above, letter box lesson, and LBL words (see, free, meet, street, sleep, green, sweet, bee, three), primary paper, word bank with words for their story (see, free, meet, street, sleep, green, sweet, deep, bee, queen, feet, three, tree, keep, feed, feel, need, seen), pencils, the story “A Green Feast” from Fun and Games with Lad and Slim, long E assessment worksheet. 

 

Procedures:

  1. Say: We have been working on learning our short vowel words so we can be really good readers. We worked on a says /a/ where we learned words like cat, hat, flag. What are some other words you remember from a says /a/? Good! We also learned e says /e/. Some words we learned were egg, best, smell. We also learned a_i=/A/ with words like train and brain and everyone did a really great job with those. So today, to further our reading skills and to become the best readers we can be, we are going to learn ee=/E/. There’s a funny little saying people say when they are taking your picture and want you to smile. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? “Say cheese!” that’s right! (show say cheese image).

  2. Say: I chose this picture so it would be easy for you to remember the sound ee makes and what our mouth looks like when we say it. When we make the sound ee=/E/ we are showing our teeth and almost look like we are smiling. To start off we are going to play a little game called “This or That”. I’m going to say to words, I want you to pay close attention to the shape my mouth is and what sound it’s making when I say these words. Okay are you ready? Our first set of words for “This or That” is “wheel” or “wish”. Do you hear the ee in “wheel” or “wish”? Good. Next is “seem” or “skin”. (Note: if they are having trouble repeat the words and emphasize each vowel.) Great job. For our last round we have “tree” or “trim”. Good!

  3. Say: Now that we have mastered that let’s move on to the spelling of long E. I’m going to model the spelling of a word for you first and then you’ll try on your own. I’m going to show you how to spell the word “seem” as in something didn’t seem right. First I’m going to sound it out or stretch it out so I can hear all the phonemes and make sure I have enough boxes. S-ee-m. This word has three phonemes so I will need three boxes because ee says long E and goes in one box. I’m going to go ahead and put my ee in the middle box because we know the ee is in the middle of seem. Next, I’m going to think about what comes before the ee. S says “ssss” like the sound a slithering snake makes. So, that will go in my box before my ee. Now, all we’re missing is what comes after the ee. Let’s stretch it out one more time to listen for what we are missing, /s/ /ee/ /m/. I heard /m/ which means I’ll put m at the end. Let’s take a look. (show slide with seem in their boxes all together).

  4. Say: Now that I’ve modeled seem for you I want you to try a few words. Let’s start with something easy to get you warmed up. The first word I want you to spell is see. This is just like the word seem that I just spelled with one letter less. So, what does that mean? That you already know you’ll only need two boxes instead of three. So let’s start with our ee. Go ahead and put that in your boxes. (Walk around room and see how they are doing.) Now, we’re just missing one letter right? What does that /s/ make? We just went over it. S! Good job. I knew y’all would get that one super easy. Now we’re going to move on to one that’s a little longer. The next word is deep, like the water was very deep. This time we are going to need the same amount of letter boxes that I had for seem. (Walk around while students work and check their progress.) (Next show powerpoint slide of deep in the letterboxes.) Ask: Is this what everyone got? Good! Now, our last word is going to use four phonemes which means we will need four boxes. Our last word is sweet. Thomas likes to eat something sweet. I’m going to let everyone try this one on their own while I walk around and see how you do.

  5. Next show body-coda blending with the word seem that I modeled. Have power point slide with each step of the body-coda blending so the children can follow along. Say: Now that I have showed you how to blend the phonemes together to read your words we are going to read the words we just worked on along with a few others to make sure we’ve really got the hang of it. Have powerpoint slide for all of the following words: deep, see, free, meet, street, sleep, green, sweet, bee, three. Have students read them off simultaneously.

  6. Say: That was so good! Everyone did a great job. I think our ee=/E/ correspondence is going well which means we are ready to read a story. This story is called A Green Feast. This is a story about a boy named Nate. Nate’s mom is making dinner for him. She makes him peas but he does not like green foods he says. He only likes sweets. His mom will not let him eat any sweets until he eats his greens. Does your mom ever do that? Does she make sure you eat all your real food before you can have any dessert? Let’s see what Nate’s mom does. Do you think she will make him eat his peas? Or will he not get any sweets? Let’s find out! We are going to get in groups of three and take turns reading the story to each other. You know how sometimes I will read a story aloud to the class? Think of it like that and the person reading is reading to their audience, the other group members. Don’t forget to talk about what you read before you turn the page, group members not reading should make comments on the story, prompting a discussion. I will be coming around and taking turns joining each group, having y’all read the story to me. Once it looks like everyone has read the story we will gather back in our seats and all re-read the story out loud once more all together. Let’s go ahead and get in our groups and begin reading to each other.

  7. Say: Great job reading that story everyone. Nate’s mom got him to eat his greens after all! Everyone has done such a great job learning our new correspondence today we are going to end the lesson by writing a short story kind of like the one we just read. It can be about anything you want, the only rule is that you must use words with ee=/E/ like we just learned. I am going to pass out some primary paper for you to write on and I will put a word bank on the board of words with ee that you can use. You can always use an other ee words that aren’t on the board that you may think of. Do not talk to your neighbor during this time. Once you are done writing your story you may turn it in on my desk. 

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References: 

Kelley, Mallory, Aaaaa An Alligator

https://rollmal97.wixsite.com/ctrd/beginning-reading 

Newton, Savannah, Icky Sticky “I”

https://savnewton.wixsite.com/mywebsite/beginning-reading-design 

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Decoable Story: 

Murray, Bruce, Murray, Gerri, A Green Feast

https://murraba.wixsite.com/geniebooks 

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Assessment Worksheet: 

https://www.sightwordsgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ee-words.pdf 

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