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Seek and Find When ee Says /E/
Beginning Reading Design
Rationale:
This lesson will teach students about the long vowel correspondence ee = /E/. To continue their reading education, students will need to be able to recognize the spellings that map pronunciations. Through this lesson, children will be able to recognize, spell, and read words containing ee = /E/. They will learn a meaningful representation, a young girl screeching at a spider, they will then spell and read words containing this spelling through a lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the ee = /E/ correspondence.
Materials:
Picture of a girl scared of a spider, letter manipulatives for each student, letter boxes, smartboard letterbox for teacher, for teacher smartboard letters: e,e, f, b, s, d, w, k, b, l, t, h, r; coverup for smartboard, decodable text: Lee and the Team electronic version for read aloud, decodable text: Lee and the Team individual books for students, electronic word cards for bee, see, keep, street, feel, week, feed, belt, sheet, street; assessment worksheet: words on the tree
Procedures:
1. Say: In order to become the best readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how we pronounce words. You already know how to read words with short vowels like e, as in went. Today we will learn about long E and the double e signal that lets us know when E says its name, /E/! When I say /E/ I think of a dolphin! [show picture of a dolphin]
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 smile, like this [model saying /E/]. I’ll show you: keep. I heard e say its name and my lips made a smile. There is a long E in keep. Now I will check if it is in sell. Hmm… I didn’t hear e say its name, and my lips didn’t smile. Now you try. If you hear /E/ say, “EEE!” like a dolphin. If you don’t hear /E/ say “eeee” and make an x with your arms. Do you hear /E/ in meet, pain, chill, glee, lips, tell? [Have children check to see if they feel their lips in a smile formation when /E/ says its name].
3. Say: Now let’s learn how to spell the /E/ sound we’re looking at today! One way to spell /E/ is by doubling the letter e in words. When we see that, we know e will say its name. [Write ee on the board]. What if I want to spell the word feel? If I tell my mom that I don’t feel well, she will know I’m sick. Feel means experiencing a sensation in this sentence. To spell feel in my letterbox, I will first need to recognize how many phonemes are in the word. [teacher uses smartboard or white board letterbox, while students use their own letterboxes and letter manipulatives] I will stretch it out and count: /f//e//l/. I need 3 boxes. I heard the /e/ just before the /l/ so I will put the e in the second box. I will sandwich the e between the f and the l. Let me check that, [slowly sound out] hmmm fel. If I add a second e in my second box, then I will hear e say its name. [add second e]. Okay, let’s try it now: ff-eeeeee-ll. That sounds right!
4. Say: Now, I want you all to try spelling with your own letters and letterboxes. You’ll start out with an easy two boxes for the word bee. We know what a bee is, they make honey and pollenate flowers. What should we put in the first box? [listen to students’ responses]. What goes in our second box? I will check your spellings as I walk around the room [observe individual spellings]. Okay, let’s try with one more two box word. Spell see. I want to see how great of a speller you are. [observe spellings again]. You’re all doing so great let’s try a word with three boxes. Listen for the sound that goes in the first box, then listen for when e says its name. Spell feed. I forgot to feed my fish before school today; feed. [check children’s spellings]. Now you’ll check your work with mine. Watch how I spell it with my letterboxes: f—e—e—d; see if you spelt it the same way. Now we’ll try another three-box word: week. Monday is the first day of the week; week. Let’s have a volunteer come up and spell this one. [choose volunteer and have a new volunteer for each new word that follows]. Remember when you’re spelling new words to listen for the /E/ in the word before you spell it. Here’s the next word: belt. If you don’t wear a belt, your pants will fall; belt. Did you need the double e? Why not? [listen to student responses], right because we didn’t smile and hear e say its name! [volunteer spells belt on the board]. Now let’s try a word with four phonemes! I know you can handle the challenge! The word is sheet. The sheet goes on your bed; sheet. One more word and then we’re done spelling for the day! This time I want you to use 5 boxes! The word is: street. There is a house for sale on my street; street. Remember to stretch it out when you’re spelling so you can master this tough word. [check students’ spellings]
5. Say: Now we will practice reading the words we have spelled, but before we do, I will show you how I would read a tough word. [display poster with street on the top and model reading the word]. The first thing I notice is the double e in the middle of the word; that’s my signal that e will say its name. Let me use a coverup to get the first part of the word [uncover and blend the letters that come before the vowel, then add vowel and blend]. /s//t/ = /st/ + /r/ = /str/. Now I will blend with my ee says /E/. /strE/ and I only need to say the last /t/ = /strEt/. Street; that’s it. Now let’s all do it together. [children will read words in unison, and then children go individually, each getting a turn before this activity ends]
6. Say: You’re all doing such a great job reading and spelling words with our new spelling for /E/: ee. Now we’ll read a book called Lee and the Team. This story is about a boy named Lee who is on a baseball team. Lee’s team is late for a game and he runs into all kinds of trouble getting his team ready for the game! Will Lee and the team be ready in time for their game? Let’s pair up and find out! [Pair children up for reading the book together, instruct them to alternate pages, teacher monitors progress. After individual reading, come together as a group to reread the book aloud, stop between pages for plot discussion].
7. Say: I liked that story! Were you worried that Lee and the team would not be on time for the game? Me too. Why didn’t the team want to play? Right, it was hot. What made the team get up and go? Right, Lee and the team were scared by the bee. Now, I want to test your ability to solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, there are some words that will let e say its name, and some that will not. Your job is to look through the list of words and cut out the ones that make the e sound. You can glue the long e words onto the tree and color the tree. [collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress].
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Click here to view Words on the Tree worksheet.
Resources:
Lee and the Team by Sheila Cushman and Rona Kornblum
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Geri Murray, Oh! I didn't Know!
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Words on the Tree idea:
https://www.worksheetsenglish.com/long-sound-words/
(was unable to download so I recreated and modified my own on the last page)
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