Emergent Literacy Design: Bounce the Ball with B
Rationale: This lesson will teach children to identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Student will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words by a meaningful representation (bouncing ball) and the letter symbol B, practice finding /b/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Brooke bounced Ben’s blue basketball”; drawing paper and crayons, A Bug a Bear and a Boy (Scholastic 1998); word cards with BIG, BOY, BAT, BAKE, and BOOK; assessment worksheet circling or coloring each picture that begins with the letter b.
Procedure:
1. Explain that our mouths move in different ways to pronounce certain letters and sounds. Today we are going to work on feeling our mouth form /b/. We spell /b/ with the letter B. B looks like a ball that is bouncing up and down on a stick and /b/ sounds like a ball bouncing on the floor.
2. Let’s pretend to bounce a ball (moving hand like dribbling a ball) /b/, /b/, /b/. Notice where your tongue is? (touching behind your bottom teeth). When we say /b/, we lower our tongue as our mouth opens. I can feel the /b/ when we say ball.
3. Let me show you how to find /b/ in the word ball. We can stretch out ball in super slow motion and listen for the bouncing. B-a-a-l-l. Let’s try it even slower b-b-b-a-l-l. There it was! I felt my tongue touch my bottom teeth and heard the bouncing /b/.
4. Let’s try a tongue twister. (printed out on a piece of paper) We have Brooke, a young girl and her friend Ben. They are on a basketball team together. At practice Brooke took Ben’s special blue basketball. So, “Brooke bounced Ben’s blue basketball.” Let’s say that together. This time let’s say it slow and stretch out the /b/ at the beginning of the words. “bbbrooke bbbounced bbben’s bbblue bbbasketball.” Let’s try it again and break the /b/ off of the front of the word. “/b/rooke /b/ounced /b/en’s /b/lue /b/asketball.”
5. (take out primary paper and pencil). We use the letter B to spell /b/. Capital B looks like two balls bouncing. Start at the Rooftop and trace down to the sidewalk, then up and around for his big chest and around again for his big tummy. Now let’s try lower case b. You start again at the rooftop and trace down but only bounce his belly below the fence this time. After I check it, you can practice your b’s all the way down the line on your paper. writing b
6. Now let’s play a game to see who remembers how to pick out the /b/ in a word. I will call out two words and you may raise your hand quietly if you think you know which word you hear the /b/ in. Boy or toy? Ball or tall? Blue or shoe? Book or hook? Back or attack? Now I am going to read a sentence and you bounce the ball if you hear a /b/: The, boy, went, to, the, barn, and, brushed, the, brown, horse.
7. Next we will read A Bug, a Bear, and a Boy by Davis McPhail. It is about three friends who do everything together. Let’s see if you can remember some of the things they do together after we read the book. Read the book and draw out the /b/’s, make comments before turning the page about the things the friends are doing together to keep them engaged. After reading ask your students to draw a picture of the bear, the boy, and the bug doing something from the book, caption their picture and label the three friends. Hang their work in the classroom.
8. Show BIG and model how to decide if it is big or dig: The B tells me to bounce the ball, /b/, so this word is bbbb-ig, big. You try some: BOY: boy or toy? BAT: bat or hat? BAKE: bake or fake? BOOK: book or look?
9. For an ending assessment I would hand out the worksheet from enchantedlearning.com. Each student must be able to identify the objects that begin with letter b and circle or color them.
References:
Beginning Reading Design: Uhhh, I don’t know.
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Rationale: Beginning readers must first understand the relationship between graphemes/phonemes. In this lesson they will learn to identify the correspondence u=/u/. They will be given a sound analogy to identify /u/ in spoken words and together review the written representation to identify u in written words.
Materials: Smartboard, Written Tongue Twister (“Uncle Doug shrugs under the umbrella”), Letter tiles for students (u, p, f, n, t, b, d, c, k, s, h, r, g, m), Letterboxes for students (up to 5 squares included), List of spelling words (up, fun, tub, duck, shrug, thump, crust), Scat Jumps, Printed list of pseudowords assessment (shlug, grux, huzz, vud, bup, clud, mup and dluff)
1. Say: There is a secret code that teaches us the sounds of letters. We have to learn this code in order to become better readers. Today we are going to learn the code for the short vowel u.
2. Say: When I say /u/ I think of a caveman scratching his head trying to figure out a problem (Scratch your head and say “uhhh”). Can you try that with me? Watch my mouth as I say /u/ and when you repeat after me pay attention to what it feels like to say it. Whenever you hear the sound/u/ let’s all scratch our heads like we are confused.
3. Say: Let’s practice with a tongue tickler that has a lot of /u/ sounds. Hold up your message board that says “Uncle Doug shrugs under the umbrella”. Say the message once and then have them repeat you. Say: So our story starts with Uncle Doug and he is out at the pool with the whole family, but he gets really hot and has to go sit under the umbrella to cool down. So let’s say our tickler one more time and draw out every /u/ we hear. “Uuuuuncle Douuuug shruuuuugs uuuunder the uuuuumbrella.” Good job! Now let’s try one more thing, can you break off the /u/ from each word? “/u/ncle Do/u/g shr/u/gs /u/nder the /u/mbrella”.
4. Say: For our next activity we will practice listening for /u/ in one of two words. Do you hear /u/ in bug or bee? rug or chair? up or down? umbrella or lamp? trunk or tree?
5. Say: Now that we know what the letter u sounds like, let’s practice spelling words with the /u/ sound. Spread out your letterbox letters on your desk. Remember you only put one one sound in each box. Model the word bug for students by drawing out 3 boxes on the board, writing the u in the middle box first and making the /u/ sound. Then sound out the first letter b and blend it through the end to the g. Have the students do the following words by themselves: 2 (up), 3 (fun, tub, duck,) 4 (shrug, thump) 5 (crust). Say: When you think you have the word right, raise your hand and I will come around to check it.
6. Put the word list up on the board and call on a few students to read one word. Once the list has been read through have the students read the list together in unison.
7. Say: You have done a great job reading and recognizing our letter /u/ in new words. Now we are going to read a book called Scat Jumps about a girl named Jess and her cat Scat. Jess wants to jump on the trampoline but Scat wants to nap on the trampoline, will the two work it out and have a fun day? Let’s read together and find out. (pull up the story on Powerpoint).
8. Have the students read a list of pseudowords that exemplify the short u correspondence. Print out page with pseudowords: shlug, grux, huzz, vud, bup, clud, mup and dluff.
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References:
Simpson, Claire "Uhh, Has Uncle Jud seen my seen my ugly umbrella?"
Growing Fluency Design: Hungry for Fluency
Rationale: Fluent reading is essential for comprehension. In order for students to read effortlessly and automatically they must practice reading with expression, a consistent pace and checking comprehension. This allows students to become more engaged in reading and enjoy it. Students will build their confidence in reading out loud and improve their reading rate to grow into fluent readers with their partners. Students will accomplish this through crosschecking and rereading decodable text followed by independent reading.
Materials:
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Sample sentence on white board to model
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Class set of Pete the Cat: Pete’s Big Lunch
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Stopwatch for each pair
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Pencils
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Peer fluency sheet (for each student)
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Reading rate formula
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Teacher Fluency Check (for each student)
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Felt Sandwich Fluency Chart
Procedures:
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Say: “Today our goal is to become more fluent readers. What do you think it means to be a fluent reader? [wait for responses] Fluent readers can read quickly, smoothly, and with expression because they recognize words effortlessly and automatically. When we learn to read this way we understand what we are reading better and makes reading more enjoyable.”
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Say: “Let’s look at this sentence on the board- The cat sits in the window and waits for his family to come home. I am going to read it three times and I want you to tell me which one sounds the best. 1-“The c/a/t sat (no sits) in the www/i/nnd/O/w and waits for him (no his) ffffamily to come h/O/me. 2- “The cat sits in the window and waits for his family to come home.” 3- (read with expression) The cat sits in the window and waits for his family to come home.” [let the students answer and decide which one sounded best- the third one.]
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Say: Now let’s think back to the first time I read the sentence and I got stuck on some of the words. Each time I kept reading and corrected myself once I figured out how it fit in the sentence. This is called crosschecking. This is an important strategy to help us understand the text and become fluent readers.
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Assign partners for each student and pass out books. “Now we are going to practice being fluent readers by reading Pete the Cat: Pete’s Big Lunch. Pete the cat makes a giant, delicious, sandwich for lunch. He is so excited to eat it, but will he decide to eat it alone or share with his friends? Let’s read more and find out.”
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Students should read the first 3 pages of the story quietly to themselves. Then take turns reading every other page to their partner. Explain to your students that while they are reading they must not help each other out.
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Pass out recording sheets and stopwatches to each group. Say: “Now that we have read our book, we are going to play a game. Reader 1 will start of reading the first two pages aloud while Reader 2 is in control of the timer. Do this three times each, as you listen to your partner read the pages aloud three times and listen for how their reading changes each time. Do they remember more words? Do they read faster or with more expression? Mark these changes on your recording sheets along with the time. Pick someone to be the first reader and get started!”
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After the students finish reading and recording, have them come up one at a time to read just the first few pages. Ask them to bring their recording sheet up when they are called to attach to your assessment sheet. Introduce the idea of the fluency graph saying “We are going to stack our sandwich high just like Pete. If you read 85 WPM, your sandwich is stacked al the way up. If you don’t make it we will mark where you are and work our way up to fluent reading and a bug stacked sandwich.” After they have read the passage aloud help them translate their results to find out how many words per minute they read correctly using the formula: Words x 60/seconds read. Ask them one comprehension question to assess how their fluency is affecting their comprehension.​​
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References:
King, Rachel "Monkeying Around with Fluency"
Dean, James. (2013) Pete the Cat: Pete’s Big Lunch
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Teacher Fluency Check:
Name of Reader _______________
Date __________
Time ________
Words x 60 / seconds ______ WPM
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What was this paragraph about?
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What characters are being discussed?
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Is there a problem in the story?
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Peer Fluency Check:
Name of Reader _____________
Date __________
1st time _______
2nd time _______
3rd time _______
I noticed that my partner…
After which read? 2nd 3rd
Remembered more words? YES NO
Read Faster? YES NO
Read Smoother? YES NO
Read with more expression? YES NO
Reading to Learn: Working Out Summarization Skills
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Rationale: Summarization is one of the most powerful strategies to learn to comprehend a text. A good summary asks two main questions: What is the text about? This question helps the student identify the topic of what you are reading. What is the point of the text? When a student answers this text, they have identified the main point of the article and thought about why the author wrote it.
Materials: Individual copies of “The Benefits of Exercise” from TimeforKids.com, Pencil and paper for each student, the summarization checklist, and the comprehension quiz.
Procedures:
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Explain to children why summarization is important: Say “Good readers do not spend all day remembering all the words and details of a text. They use summarization strategies to pick out the important points the author is making about the topic. When readers summarize they are reducing a text to a smaller, more memorable passage.”
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Say: “The best way to summarize is called about-point. In about-point readers ask two questions: “What is the text about?” and “What is the main point the author is making about the text?” The first question is easy to answer if you have read the text, simply state what you read about. The second question requires some extra thought and deeper understanding of the given text.”
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Say: “Next I will show you how I would do an about-point summarization on the benefits of exercise, which is the title of the article we will be reading today. What are the benefits of exercise? How often should we exercise? Do the benefits of exercise last long-term? What are some different types of exercise we can participate in? These are some of the questions we will be learning to answer today.”
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Say: Before we read, let’s talk about a vocabulary word that we will see in the text: inflammation. Inflammation is the body’s response to injury which heat, pain, and swelling are present in the area. Many times we use the form inflamed. For example, “After I fell on the sidewalk my knee became inflamed.” I fell and my knee became hot and swollen and it hurt really bad because I injured it. Has that ever happened to you? Finish this sentence: “My ankle is red and inflamed, it happened after I…”
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Here is a paragraph from the article we are going to read:
Exercise can help your brain, not just your body. Exercise makes the heart pump blood faster. That increase gives the brain a boost. Physical activity helps brain cells grow. And moving more appears to lower the chances of memory loss. Running and swimming are two of the best workouts for brain health. They increase the heart rate and pump more blood to the noggin. Had a bad day at school? Exercise can help you cope with anger and feel happier. And breaking a sweat a few times a week can even help you live longer.
This paragraph is about exercise, but what are some of the main points the writer is making? It says that exercise is good for your brain. Exercise keeps our heart rates up and pumps blood to our brain. Two brain healthy workouts are running and swimming. Exercise can even make us happier, and help us live longer. If I want to summarize these points into a topic sentence I would say: “Exercise keeps blood pumping to our brain to give us a boost and make us happier. Two exercises we can do to keep our brain healthy are running and swimming.”
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Now I want you to use about-point on a paragraph:
Meditation is the practice of relaxing the body and mind by mental exercise. It can help you feel relaxed in the moment. But experts say it can also help long-term.
Say: “What is this paragraph about? Yes, exercise and meditation. What are some of the main points of the paragraph? Correct, meditation relaxes our body and brain. Also correct that it can help people feel more relaxed long term. Let’s combine our ideas into one sentence: Meditation is a mental exercise that relaxes our bodies and brains and benefits us in the long-term.”
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Now I’d like you to finish reading the article and use about-point to make a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished you will have made a good summary of the whole article, which will help you remember some of the important benefits of exercise. We will test your knowledge and understanding with a quiz after everyone is done writing.
Assessment: Collect each student’s summary of the article, and evaluate the summarization with the following checklist.
__ Collected important information
__ Ignored trivia and examples in summary
__ Significantly reduced the text from the original
__ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph
__ Sentences organized coherently into essay form
Quiz:
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How many minutes of exercise are recommended daily?
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What can too much stress lead to?
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What do we call the body’s response to injury and overuse?
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How many minutes a day should we practice meditating and being mindful?
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Does exercise make the heart pump blood slower or faster?
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What are two types of exercises proven to boost brain health?
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Does exercise make people happier or sadder?
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What part of the body is running sometimes hard on?
References:
“Benefits of Exercise” article link: https://www.timeforkids.com/g34/exercise/
Bruce Murray, Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/AboutPointRL.html
Savannah Duke, Summarizing in the Sea! http://sav4au.wixsite.com/misssavannahsreading/about1-c1z94
