Uh, I understand!
A Beginning Reading Lesson
By Addie Herrlin
Rationale: In this lesson, students will learn about the short vowel correspondence /u/=u. It’s necessary that students recognize the spellings of words that map out word pronunciations. This lesson will teach students to recognize, pronounce, spell, and read words that contain the correspondence /u/. The caveman saying “Uh” will teach them a meaningful representation, and a letterbox lesson will help them spell and read words containing the correspondence, as well as read a decodable book that is consistent with the /u/=u correspondence.
Materials: Image of the caveman with “U” next to it, cover up critters, plastic letter manipulatives for each student, letterboxes for students, letterboxes drawn on whiteboard or on smart board for teacher, magnetic or otherwise letters for teacher (r, u, n, t, b, f, h, c, k, p, l, m, s, i, m, a, d, o) Fuzz and the Buzz (decodable book) and these words printed on a poster or written on whiteboard for students to read: run, tub, rim, tab, dock, fun, hut, truck, plum, bus, Short U Color Puzzle (link at bottom of page)
Procedures:
1. Say: The code that tells us how to pronounce words can be tricky, and for us to be experts at reader, we have to learn this code so we can pronounce words. It’ll be tricky, but I know we can do it. We’ve already talked about most of our other short vowels, like i and igloo, so today we’re going to learn about short U and its sound. Short U sounds like “uhh,” so when we think of short U we can think of a caveman scratching his head and saying, “Uh, I understand!” [show students the image of caveman and mime scratching forehead and saying “Uhh”]
2. Say: We’re going to learn the spelling of /u/ but first we need to listen for it in words and see if we can hear it. When we listen for /u/ in words, we hear /u/ say uhhh like a caveman, and our lips are open like we’re confused. Our tongue lays flat in our mouths and our lips are open. [Model saying “uhhh” with lips parted] When we read words with /u/ in them, we need to listen for the “uhh” and see if our mouths are open and tongues are flat. There’s a short /u/ in uncle. Do you think purple has short /u/? Let’s see. Puuurple. No, I don’t hear “uh” and my tongue doesn’t lie flat in my mouth like in uhh. Now, I want you to try and find short /u/ in some words. Remember, we want to listen for “uh” and feel our tongues lying flat and our mouths open just a little bit. Remember our caveman! Do we hear uh in snap, cub, snug, sand, bird, sung? [Have the students give a thumbs up whenever they hear “uh” for short /u/.]
3. Okay, we’re also going to look at the spelling of short /u/ today. Short u is usually in front of and/or behind a consonant, and there aren’t usually any vowels after it or before it. Let’s take out our letterboxes. I know we all remember how to use our letter boxes, but I’m going to model one to remind you how it works. Okay, I’ll spell “uncle.” Now, we hear “u-n-c-le”, and that’s four phonemes, so we know we’ll need four letter boxes. What do I think the first letter is? I remember my caveman saying uhhh…I know! It’s /u/! U goes in the first letter box. I know u says “uhh” and I hear that in the beginning of the word, so I’ll put that in the first box. Next comes “nn” and what do we think that is? Right, "n!" N goes in the next box. Next, I hear /c/. . I think that’s a c, so I'll put it in the next box. The next sound I hear is /l/ and "l" sounds like /l/ so I'll put that in the next box. Now this word is kind of tricky, so I'll show you how the "e" at the end of the word goes outside of the last box. That makes sense, that’s how you spell "uncle." "L" goes in the last letter box, since we hear /u//n//c//l/e. [Point to letters and stretch out the word as you go along, and then read the word at a normal pace.]
4. Does everyone understand? Great. Now, you’re going to try spelling some words in letter boxes. You can do it, and I’ll help you through it. Our first word is “run”. I need to run to catch up to my class. We need three boxes for this word. What do you think should go in the first box? [Correct their answers if incorrect, respond if they have questions or if their answers are correct.] Right, we know /r/ says r, so that goes in the first box. What comes next? Remember our caveman. That’s right, u comes next. Go ahead and put the u in the next box. What letter says “nnn” like nugget or night? That’s right! “n!” N goes in the last box. Excellent work. [Walk around to check spellings] [Continue with this process for the three phoneme words; when you get to the four phoneme words, explain that these words might be a little tougher, but that we’ll work through it together. ]
5. You all did a great job spelling today, and now we’re going to do some reading. We’re going to read the words we just spelled in our letter boxes. We know short u says uhh like a caveman and it’s followed by or follows a consonant. Let’s try to keep that in mind when we’re reading our words from the board. [Model reading by decoding with a cover up critter on the board with the first word, decode and then blend the sounds together.] Okay, so now we all know what we’re going to do. Let’s read all these words out loud together. [Point to each word as they read them all at once. After reading in unison, call on students one by one to read one word from the list out loud.]
6. I’m so proud of how hard you’ve all been working. We did a great job spelling and reading our new words for short /u/. Now that we’ve worked on our spellings, we’re going to read a new book called Fuzz and the Buzz. This book is about a bear cub named Fuzz. Fuzz likes to run, and one day he runs and runs away from his home and right into a tree that has some bees. Do you think something bad might happen? I hope he doesn’t get stung by any bees! Let’s read to find out what happens to Buzz. [Have students pair up and read the book out loud by alternating pages while the teacher walks around the room and monitors progress as well as providing scaffolding if necessary. After everyone is finished, the class will reread the story out loud with the teacher and take breaks between pages to talk about what happened.]
7. Wow, Fuzz sure got into a whole lot of trouble, didn’t he? First, the bees bother him, and then when he runs away from them, he gets all muddy in the puddle! Luckily his mom helped him wash off, right? So now we’re going to work on a worksheet that will review all our vowels and consonants that we’ve done so far. I want you to color the fish, and then sort the letters by vowels and consonants. I’ll collect the worksheet when it’s time to pack up. Great work today! [Pass out worksheet, walk around monitoring progress. Collect assignment to check progress.]
Resources:
Noie Yancey, Oh, Oh, My Knee Hurts: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/yanceybr.htm
Fuzz and the Buzz. Educational Insights, 1990. Phonics Readers, Short U Book 9. http://www.amazon.com/Fuzz-Buzz-Phonics-Readers-Vowels/dp/0886798590
Short U Color Puzzle: http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/short-sounds-u/
