Beginning Reading Lesson Plan
Play on a May Day
Rationale: In this lesson children will learn about the long vowel correspondence /A/=ay. In order for the children to be able to read, they must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling ay. They will learn a meaningful representation (Play on a May Day), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox Lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence /A/=ay
Materials: You will need a graphic image of a child Playing on a May Day; a cover up critter; whiteboard or Smartboard Letterbox for modeling the group and then individual Letterboxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or Smartboard letters for teachers: A, d, h, l, n, p, s
; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: say, play, day, lay, hay, and nay; a decodable text: Play for the Day; and an assessment worksheet.
Procedures: 1. In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with a, such as cat, bag, grass, tag, and act. So today we are going to learn about the long A and the y that is used to make the A say it’s name, /A/. When I say /A/, I think of a fun activity where you “Play on a May Day”. (Show the graphic Image).
2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /A/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /A/ in words, I hear a say its name /A/ and my mouth makes a shape like this. (Make vocal gesture for /A/). My tongue stays behind my bottom teeth and I let out a long /A/ sounds. I’ll show you first: play. I heard a say its name and I felt my mouth move to make the a. That means that there is a long a in play. Now I’m going to see it is in jar. Wow, I didn’t hear a say its name and my mouth didn’t make that movement. Now you can try. If you hear /A/ say “Play on a May Day” and if you don’t hear /A/ say “No not here”. OK, so is it in snail, whale, cake, ant, tag, ham?
3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /A/, that is what we will learn today. One way to spell /A/ is with the letter a and signal y at the end of the word, this tells me to say A’s name. (Write ay on the board). So what if I want to spell the word play? “I want to play with my dog.” Play means to occupy oneself in an activity for amusement or reaction. To spell play in my letterboxes, first I need to know how many sounds or phonemes I have in the word. So I will stretch it out and count: /p/ /l/ /Ay/. I need 3 boxes. I heard that /A/ just before the /l/ so I’m going to put an a in the 3rd box and the y goes in the 3nd box too since it completes the /A/ sound. The word starts with /p/, so that means I need my p. Now it gets a little harder, so I’m going to say it again but slowly, /p/ /l/ Ay/. I think I heard a /l/ so I will put the l right after the p in the other letterbox.
P
l
ay
4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You will start out easy with four boxes for snail. A snail is a type of bug. “We saw a snail on the playground”. What should go in the first box? (respond accordingly to the child’s answer). What goes in the second box? What about the third box? And the fourth? I will walk around the room and check. (Observe progress). Now you will need two letterboxes for the next word. Remember to listen for the beginning sounds that will go in the first box. Then listen for our /A/ sound and then don’t forget to put the y with the A when you hear /A/. Here is our new word clay. Clay is a substance that is used for many different things such as making tiles, brick, or even pottery. “I played with clay today at school”. (Allow the children time to spell the word). Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: c---l---a---y. Now see if you spelled it this way. Let’s try another one with three letterboxes. Our new word is pray. “Some children pray at before eating”. (Allow the children time to spell the word). Time to check your work. (Have a volunteer spell it on the letterboxes on the board). (Repeat this step for each new word). Now we have a new word. Listen to see if this word says /A/ in it before you spell it fast. “That boy can run so fast”. Did you need a y? Why not? Right, because we didn’t hear a say its name. We spell it with our short vowel a. (Have a volunteer spell it on the board). Now let’s try a word with 4 phonemes and 4 boxes today. “I went to play today”. You can do one more before we are done with the spelling. This word will need 5 boxes because it has 5 sounds subway. “When I visited my aunt, I had to take the subway”. Remember you can stretch out the words to help you figure out hard ones.
5. Say: Now I’m going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. (Display the board with subway on top and model reading the word). First I see there’s a y on the end. That is my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s a vowel a, so it must say /A/. I’m going to use my cover up critter to get the first part. (Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend the vowel). /s/ + /u/ + /b/ = /sub/. Now I’m going to add the /w/. Lets say it again with the w. /s/+/u/+/b/+/w/. Now I’m going to blend that with /A/ = /subwA/. Now all I need is the end. At the end is a /y/ = /subway/. Subway, that’s it. Now it’s your turn, everyone together. (Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn).
6. Say: You have done a great job reading words with our new spelling for /A/, which is ay. Now we are going to read a book called Play for the Day. This is a story of two friends who want to play. They want to play with different things. We are going to have to read the book to find out what they end up playing. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Play for the Day to find out what happens. (Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each. The teacher walks around the room monitoring everyone progress. After the children are done with their paired reading, the class reads Play for the Day aloud together, don’t forget to stop between each page to discuss the plot).
7. Say: That was a great story! What did the friends decide to play? Correct, they decided to play with the swing set and swing. What was the problem in the beginning? Oh yes, they couldn’t decide on one thing together. They wanted to play with different things until they found something they both liked. Great job! Now before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /A/ by ay, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem all on your own. On this worksheet, there will be words that you have color that end in ay. Then there is a fun crossword, so you have to find all the words with the /A/ sound. (Collect worksheet to evaluate individual child progress).
References: Dr. Bruce Murray: http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/
Geri Murray: https://sites.google.com/site/readingwritingconnection/beggingreadingdesign
