Emily James 

Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence ea=/E/. In order to be able to read, children must be able to recognize the spellings that map the word pronunciations, and this lesson will focus on the spelling ea. The children will learn to recognize, read and spell this vowel correspondence, with the help of a sneaky man image. The children will spell and read words with this spelling in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book with ea=/E/.

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Materials:

1. Picture of sneaking man

2. Cover Up critter

3. Letterboxes

4. Letter tiles: (s, e, a, r, d, c, l, n, h, k)

5. White board

6. Lists of words (sea, read, clean, shed, shed)

7. Assessment worksheet

8. Book, The Mean Geese

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Procedure

1. Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words, we have already learned short vowel words with e like pet, and that E says its name when there are two e’s put together, like in peek. That is not the only time E says its name! Today, we’re going to learn how when put together, the letters “e” and “a’ make E says its name, /E/. When I hear /E/, I think of a detective sneeeeaaaking around looking for clues. [Show graphic image]

2. Say: before we learn about the spelling of /E/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /E/ in words, I hear e say its name /E/ and my lips make a little e shape like this. [Make vocal gesture for /E/.] I’ll show you first: leak. I heard e say its name and I felt my lips make a slight opened mouth smile, and my tongue touch the roof of my mouth. There is a long E in leak. Now I’m going to see if it’s in pet. Hmm, I didn’t hear e say its name and my lips didn’t make a slight opened mouth smile, and my tongue didn’t touch the roof of my mouth. Now you try. If you hear /E/ say, “Sneeeeaaaakky.” If you don’t hear /E/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in leaf, branch, eagle, owl, beaver, otter.

3. Say: Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /E/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /E/ is with the letter e and an a right next to it to tell me to say E’s name. [Write ea on the board.]. What if I want to spell the word wreath? “My mom put up the Christmas wreath today.”. To spell seat in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /wr//E/th/ I need 3 boxes. I heard that /E/ just before the /th/ so I’m going to put an e in the 2nd. The word starts with a /wr/ sound, but it actually starts with a w. Now I’m going to say it slowly, /wr//E//th/. I think I heard /th/ so I’ll put a t right after the ea.

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for sea. The sea is another name for the beach or the ocean, “My family went on a vacation to the sea.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? 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 that goes in the first box. Then listen for /E/ Here’s the word: read. My teacher makes me read lots of books [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: r – e – a – d and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: clean; My parents like it when I clean my room. [Have volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word.] Next word. Listen to see if this word has /E/ in it before you spell it: shed; My dog does nothing but shed his fur. Did you need an a? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear e say its name. We spell it with our short vowel e. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Did you remember to spell /sh/ with a sh? Now for our last word, let’s try a 4 phoneme word: sneak; In order to look for clues, the detective has to sneak around.

5. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with sneak on the top and model reading the word.] First I see there’s an e and a together; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s the vowel e first. It must say /E/. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] /s//n/ = /s/ + /n/ = /sn/ Now I’m going to blend that with /E/ = /snE/. Now all I need is the end, /k/ = /snEk/. Sneak; that’s it. Now it’s your turn, everyone together. [Have children read words together. Then, have students individually read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /E/: ea. Now we are going to read a book called The Mean Geese. Lad and Scat go to the park, but they come across some mean geese who try and chase them! Let’s pair up and take turns reading The Mean Geese to find out what happens to Lad and Scat. After we pair up, we’ll read the book aloud so we can discuss it as a class.

7.  That was a fun book to read, wasn’t it? What happened to Lad? That right, Mom and Jess scared them away! Now to finish our lesson on ea=/E/ we’re going to complete this worksheet! [Hand out worksheet] First, use a pencil to copy down the words you see at the top of the page. Then, with a crayon, trace over the words that make the long E sound.

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Resources

Murray, G. (2004) The Mean Geese. Reading Genie: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/bookindex.html

Price Sarah, Eeek, it’s big E http://sarahpricelessondesigns.weebly.com/beginning-reading.html

Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidslearningstation.com/spelling/2nd-grade/spelling-worksheet-rainbow-write-long-ee-ea-words

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