Beginning Reading: Find the lopsided curl with O “ahhh”

 

 

 

​

 

 

Molly the odd girl with lopsided curls.

O=/o/

Rationale: This lesson teaches children the short vowel correspondence /o/=o. Children must learn to recognize words and their spelling maps to become good readers. Students are going to learn to recognize words as they read, recognize, and spell words that have /o/=o correspondence. Students will learn the meaningful representation that Molly the odd girl with lopsided curls, spell and read words that contain this lesson, complete their letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence /o/=o.

 

Materials:

• Pencils & primary paper

• Image of a girl with curly hair

• Cover-up critter

• Letterboxes for each student

• Letter tiles: o,x,d,g,f,f,m,t,h,r,s,n,I,w

• Chart with spelling words: ox, dog, hops, frog, strong, swim, robin

• Decodable text: “in the Big Top”

• Assessment Worksheet

Procedures:

1. Say: “We have to learn the code that will tell us how to pronounce words so we can get better at reading! We’ve learned the short vowels /a/=a, like the word bat, and /e/=e like the word pet, /i/=i, like dig. Today, we are going to learn short o. When I think of /o/, I think of Molly who is odd and has lopsided curls.”

2. Say: “We are going to listen for the sound /o/ in some words. When I say /o/, my mouth opens slightly, the back of my tongue is up towards the roof of my mouth near my throat, and the sound is short (make vocal gesture for /o/ like saying ah when drinking a cool drink). There is a short o in odd. Is it in the word run? I didn’t hear the /o/ sound and my mouth didn’t open slightly. It’s your turn now! When you hear the short /o/ sound in a word pretend like you are describing Molly’s lopsided curl. Is it in: cat, dog, or fish?

3. Say: “Now let’s look at the spelling of /o/. We spell /o/ with the letter o. What if I want to spell the word hops? To spell hops in the letterboxes I need to know how many phonemes are in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /h/o/p/s/. I will need four letterboxes. I hear /o/ just before /p/ and /s/ left. The letter tile /p/ goes in the third tile because it comes after /o/ in the word so that means the /s/ tile goes in the last one. I’m now going to show you how to read a harder word on the chart (grabs chart with the word robin on it and tapes it to the board). I need to put the beginning letters with it: r-o-b /rob/. Now, I’ll put the chunk together with the very last sound, /rob-in/. Like ‘The robin flew into the bird’s nest.’

4. Say: “I am going to have you spell words in the letterboxes. Let’s start out with two boxes. Since I only have two boxes, that means there will only be two phonemes. Your first word is ox. ‘I see an ox outside’. What should go in the first box? (Responds to answer). What should go in the second box? (Responds to answer). I will check everyone’s spelling. Our next word will need three letterboxes because it has 3 phonemes. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box, for /o/. The word is dog. ‘I have a pet dog’ (allow students to spell word). Time to check work. Watch how I spell dog in my letterboxes: d-o-g. DO you have it spelled out the same way? Now, let’s try with four letterboxes. There are four phonemes in this word because there are four letterboxes. The next word is frog. . ‘The frog jumped onto the log.’ (children do their letterbox and then ask someone to volunteer how it is supposed to be spelled on the board). Our next word also has four letterboxes. Your word is, swim. Does that word have /o/ in it? (Children will give answer). There is no /o/ in swim. Now let’s try one with five letterboxes. If a word uses five letterboxes, then that means it has five phonemes. Your word is strong. ‘That girl is so strong!’

5. Say: “Now I’m going to let you read the words that you spelled, but first I want to show you how I read a harder word. (display poster with strong at the top and model the reading word). I see that there is a /s/ in the beginning. That lets me know that I put /s/ in the first box because it makes one sound. Next is /t/ so I put that in the second box, then /r/ in the third box. Then there is my vowel /o/. It must say /o/=o. I’m going to use my cover-up critter to get the last part of the word. (uncover and blend after the vowel, then blend with the vowel). /ng/. Now I am going to blend that with /o/ /ng/. Now I put everything together; /strong/. “(Have students read the words together. Call individual students to come and read a word from the list at your desk until everyone is done).

6. Say: “You have done a great job reading words with our new spelling for /o/= o. Now we are going to read a book called “In the Big Top.” Book-talk: The big top has come to town, and this family of clowns is getting ready for their act. Pop is trying to get everyone into the hot rod before it is time to go into the big top. There are 6 silly clowns: Roz, Tod, Rob, Tom, Pop, and Mom. Will they all make it in the hot rod in time for their act under the big top? (students pair up and take turns reading pages while the teacher walks around to see progress. The class will read the book together to finish the activity.

7. Say: “That was a great story! (I will then call students individually to my desk to read a couple of pages from the book to me while I make notes of their miscues. The other students will work on a worksheet individually practicing identifying words with the /o/= o correspondence. Students will say the name of each picture aloud and if they hear the short “o” sound, they fill in the “o” to finish the word, and then read the entire word aloud.

 

Resources:

 

Assessment worksheet:

https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/sounding-out-short-o/

Book: Cushman, S. In the Big Top. Educational Insights, Carson, CA. 1990.

​