Reading Lessons
Crying Baby Says “Aaaaaa”
Advancements Index: http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/advancements/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
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Rationale: In this lesson students will learn the vowel correspondence a=/a/. Teaching students to decode vowel correspondences first can help students be able to decode many words quickly. They will be able to recognize a=/a/ in words, read sentences, complete letter box lessons, and read decodable books that focus on the correspondence.
Materials:
Moving picture of baby crying
Letter boxes & Letter manipulates
Primary paper & Pencil
Cover up critter
List of words for letter box lesson
Decodable book
Worksheet
Poster
Procedures:
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“Today we are going to go over a sound for the letter a. It makes the /a/ sound, like a crying baby does. Can you show me how a baby cries?” Make crying hand movements in front of eyes.
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“First we need to look at what our mouth does when we say /a/. Watch how when I say /a/ my jaw drops down and my tongue is resting at the bottom of my mouth.” Demonstrate. “Now you try!” “Do you hear the /a/ sound in lad or led?” “That’s right, the /a/ sound is in lad.” “I’m going to read some words to you and when you hear the /a/ sound I want you to show me your crying baby face.” “Ready? Bat, fed, cab, rag, ten, sad.”
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“Let’s try to spell the word crash. As in the bike was in a crash with the mailbox and that made the baby cry. First we need to sound out the word to listen for how many sounds (phonemes) we hear. Ready? Say it slowly with me: /c/ /r/ /a/ /sh/. Notice how the last two letters make one sound. We only need four boxes to spell the word crash. The /a/ sound came before the /sh/ sound, but after the /r/ sound so I am going to put the a in the third box. The first sound of the word is the /c/ so I am going to put the c in the first box. Next I hear the /r/ sound so the r goes in the second box. Last, I hear the /sh/ sound so I am going to put an s and an h together in the last box.”
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“Now I’m going to get your to spell out some words using the letter tiles. I’ll put out how many boxes each word will use. The first one needs three boxes. Show me how to spell ‘nap’ as in I am tired, I want to take a nap.” Allow student to spell out the word. “The next word is ‘dad’.” Continue this for the remaining words: cat, fan, map, glad, scan, than, snack, math.
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“We are going to read the words that we just spelled together. But first let me show you an example of how to read ‘snack’. Model reading the word. Go through the remaining words on a poster with the class. Call on students to read the words in smaller groups or individually.
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“You all have done a really good job learning the a=/a/ sound. How about we read a new book together called Pat’s Jam. In this story Pat and Pam are rats and they go to the grocery store together to get jam and ham. Pat drove them there in his van. Once they have gotten their groceries they go to the van to leave. But the van is out of gas! Do you think Pat and Pam will make it home? Keep reading to find out.” Have students pair up and finish reading the story together. Read the whole story as a class and give a few questions to get discussions going about the book.
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Assessment: Students will complete a worksheet. In this worksheet students will look at the picture for each word and fill in the missing letter that completes the word to match the picture. Once students have finished competing the words they will color each picture on the page.
Resources:
Worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/short-a-words/
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Pats-Jam-Book-2-Short/dp/0886798523
Anna Sienkiewicz: “AAAA Cried the Baby!” https://als0095.wixsite.com/readinglessons/beginning-reading
