top of page

Beginning Reading 

“Ed the Elderly’

A Beginner Reading Lesson Design

By: Michaela Daugherty

 

Rationale: This lesson will help students identify the short vowel /e/, the phoneme represented by E. Students will learn to recognize /e/ in spoken language by learning a meaningful representation and the letter E, practice finding /e/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /e/. Students will be able to read decoadable books with words with /e/. 

 

Materials:

1.) Primary Paper and pencil

2.) Overhead visual sheet with an older lady with her arm to her ear and the letter e 3.) Chart with the tongue twister “Ed met Ted, well Ted met Deb”

4.) Word cards with ED, BEG, BED, PET, HELP, SLED, SPENT, MAT, CAP, HAT

5.) Letterboxes and letters, one per student; book “Red Gets Fed”

6.) Assessment worksheet

 

Procedures: 1. “In order for us to become experts at reading we have to learn the secret code that tells us how to pronounce words. Who remembers the short vowel we went over last week? That’s right short a. What does short a sound like? Very good! Let’s pretend we just had some terrible medicine and say /a/, /a/, /a/. Great job! Now today friends, we are going to learn short vowel e that says /e/. When I say /e/ I hear a little old man saying ‘EEEHH I didn’t hear you!’ [Show graphic image]. “Now everyone get up and act like a confused old man to your friends. Good job now let’s go back to our seats!”

 

2. “Before we can learn the spellings of /e/ we need to be able to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /e/ I hear /e/ like a little old man and my mouth stretches all the way to my ears. [Make mouth gesture for them]. I’ll show you in a word bed. Now I’m going to see if it’s in did, no I don’t think I hear the old man and my mouth didn’t stretch to my ears. Now you try. If you hear /e/ put your hand on your ear like a confused old man. If you don’t hear /e/ say ‘that’s not it’.  Is it in bed, beg, pet, pin, fan, or help? [Have the students point to their mouth when they feel /e/].

 

3. “ Now let’s look at spellings of words with /e/. What if I wanted to spell get? Like please get me a pencil. To spell get in a letterbox, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /g/ /e/ /t/. I need three boxes. I heard /e/ just before the /t/ and right after the /g/ so I am going to put /e/ in the second box. The word starts with /g/ so it goes in the first box, and ends with /t/ so it goes in the third box. [Point to boxes when talking about what letter goes in which box].

 

4. “Now I am going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You will start out easy with two boxes for Ed. Ed is our elderly man we talked about earlier when listening for /e/ in spoken words. We only need two letterboxes for this word. What do you think should go first? [Wait for student response] What goes in the second box? I will check your spellings so don’t clear your letters yet [Walk around and view progress]. For the next word you need three letterboxes. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box, then listen for /e/. The word is beg, I have to beg my mom to let me eat ice cream; beg. [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: b– e – g and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: pet, I have a pet goat. [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: dock; I put my boat by the dock. Did you hear /e/ in that word? Why not? That’s right we didn’t hear the old confused man yell /e/. Now let’s try four phoneme word help; I need help with my homework. [Have volunteer come to the board to show how to spell it] Very good! “

 

5. “ Now I am going to let you read the words you spelled, but first I will show you how you read a tough word. [Show chart with sled on the top and model reading the word] First I see there is a /e/ in the middle. I am going to use my cover-up critter to get the first part of the word. [Uncover and blend before the vowel and with the vowel] /s//l/=/sl/+/e/+/d/=/sled/. Sled; that’s it. Now it’s your turn, everyone together. [Have students read all the words in unison. Then call on individuals to read a word one at a time from the list].

 

6. “You have done a great job spelling and reading today. Now we are going to read a book called Red Gets Fed. This is a story about a cute dog named Red and his owner Meg. One morning Red is ready to eat but everyone is asleep, will he ever get fed? Let’s get in our reading circle groups and take turns reading a page and find out what happens next. [Students get in their preassaigned reading groups and take turns reading a page. After this the class comes together and reads Red Gets Fed together and does before you turn questions about the story].

 

7. “That was a great story! What did you think was going to happen to Red? Did you think Meg or Dad was going to wake up to feed him? That’s right it was both of them. Before we finish for today I want to see how well you know /e/. On this worksheet you will match the picture with the words by drawing a line to connect them, make sure to look out for /e/. Also please make sure you read every word to make sure you match the right word to the right picture. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual progress and if they finish early let them read a book on their choice]

 

 

Resources:

Cushman, Sheila, and Patti Briles. Red Gets Fed. Dominguez Hills, CA: Educational Insights, 1990. Print.

 

Visual 

 

Worksheet: 

 

 Other lessons for short /e/

 

Oh, Do You Know? 

 

 

 

 

 

Return to Handoffs Index

bottom of page