Brooke Baker's Reading Designs
Aye Aye, Captain!
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A Beginning Reading Lesson
Rationale:
This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence i_e = /I/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling i_e. They will learn a meaningful representation (sailor saying “Aye Aye Captain”), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence i_e = /I/.
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Materials:
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Graphic image of sailor saluting
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Cover-up critter
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Whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin letterboxes for each student
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Letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: i, e, c, r, p, t, l, h, d, w, s, b, m, c, k
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List of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: ice, ripe, time, click, hide, wise, tribe, and pseudoword: stime
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Decodable text Nate’s Bike Ride and assessment worksheet p. 9.
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Procedures:
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Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with i, like him, but today we are going to learn about long I and the silent e signal that is used to make I say its name, /I/. When I say /I/ I think of a funny little sailor saying “Aye aye captain! [show graphic image]. Now let’s look at the spelling of /I/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /I/ is with the letter i and a signal e at the end of the word to tell me to say I’s name. [Write i_e on the board.] This blank line here means there is a consonant after i, and at the end of the word there is a little silent e signal.
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. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /I/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /I/ in words, I hear i say its name /I/ and my jaw drops to make an oval then moves into a slightly smaller oval. [Make vocal gesture for /I/.] I’ll show you first: ice. I heard i say its name and I felt my lips make a little i [make a circle motion around pursed lips]. There is a long I in ice. Now I’m going to see if it’s in lip. Hmm, I didn’t hear i say its name. Now you try. If you hear /I/ say, “Aye aye captain!” If you don’t hear /I/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in crime, day, kite, rice, hop? [Have children make a circle motion around their open mouth when they feel /I/ say its name.]
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What if I want to spell the word strive? “You should strive to do your best.” Strive means to try in this sentence. To spell strive in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /s//t//r//I//v/ I need 5 boxes. I heard that /I/ just before the /v/ so I’m going to put an i in the 4th box and the silent e signal outside the last box. The word starts with /s/, that’s easy; I need an s. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going to say it slowly, /s//t//r//I//v/. I think I heard /t/ so I’ll put a t right after the s. One more before the /I/. . . /s//t//r//I//v/, I think I heard /r/. I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /s//t//r//I//v/.] The missing one is /v/. Now I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with slime on the top and model reading the word.] I’m going to start with the i_e; that part says /I/. Now I’m going to put the beginning letters with it: s-l-i_e, /slI/. Now I’ll put that chunk together with the last sound, /slI-m/. Oh, slime, like “Snails leave a slime trail.”
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Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for ice. Ice occurs when water freezes, “The ice makes the ground slippery”. What about silent e, did you remember to put it outside the boxes? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress.] You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound to spell in the first box. Then listen for /I/ and don’t forget to put the signal silent e at the end, outside the boxes. Here’s the word: ripe, The fruit is ripe; ripe. [Allow children to spell remaining words, giving sentences for each word: time, hide, click, wise, and tribe.]
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Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled. [Show the words ice, ripe, time, click, hide, wise, and tribe the extra words strive and slime, and the pseudoword stime. Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]
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Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for i_e = /I/ Now we are going to read a book called Nate’s Bike Ride. This is a story of a boy named Tim who wants to hang out with his friend, Nate. Tim asks to go on a hike or to ride bikes, but Nate would rather watch TV or play with his snake. Tim wants Nate to ride bikes with him so he thinks of a plan to trick Nate. Will that plan work? Let’s find out! Let’s read this together. I will read one page and you will read the other page. [Book can be displayed through projector or through the teacher holding it up. The teacher can have a different person read the pages to keep them involved. Make sure to stop between pages to discuss the plot].
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Say: Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /I/ = i_e, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have some words missing. Your job is to look in the box of word choices and decide which i_e word fits best to make sense of these sentences. First try reading all the words in the box, then choose the word that fits best in the space. Reread the sentence with your answers to see if they make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
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References:
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"Tweet Tweet" by Sara Smith
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Graphic: https://giphy.com/gifs/pirate-redbeard-Ykn0bm256DRWJ4jLrY
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Decodable Book: Lad and Slim; Nate’s Bike Ride pg. 57
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Assessment Worksheet (p.9) : https://www.themeasuredmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Shrti-i-eWrk.pdf
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