Beginning Reading Design

Ew: it sounds like U!

 

A Beginning Reading Lesson 

By: Libby Mckee

 

Rationale: This lesson teaches about the long vowel correspondence ew = /U/. For children to be able to properly read and decode on their own they must be able to recognize spellings that are associated with sounds. This lesson in particular will focus on the letters ew making the /U/ sound, and by the end of the lesson students will be able to recognize words with the ew correspondence as making a /U/ sounds. They will learn this first by identifying the way the sound can be made while making a face of smelling something bad (something you would say ew about). After a meaningful representation I will do a letter box lesson, then a bin activity with ew words and finish with a decodable book that focuses on ew= /U/. 

 

Materials: Images of people saying ew/ smelling something bad, Whiteboard, Elkonin letters for modeling and bags of letters for students (letters: ), Bins and laminated labels with the words ew and not ew words, laminated letter cards (words grew, new, flew, chew, dew, screw, newt, newspaper, jewel, threw, not, then, what, when, how, owe, weld, wore), and do the Close the Gap ew worksheet then will read A Bad Hair Day and Blowing Bubbles. 

 

Procedures: 

1. Say: When we read sometimes combinations of letters make different sounds than the letters by themselves. We know the sounds these letters make together by learning the code that most letters follow. Sometimes two letters join together to make a single sound if one letter is a vowel. Today we will be learning about the sound /U/. What are some words that have the /U/ sound? (let students respond). Yes good! Now when we make the /U/ sound we close our mouths in the shape of an umbrella. [model vocal gesture for /U/]. Can you all show me that Umbrella shape with your mouths? Great job!

2. Say: The way we spell the /U/ sound changes sometimes, so before we learn how its spelled let's see if you can hear the /U/ sound in words. If you hear the /U/ sound I want you to make an umbrella with your arms. (read words up, on, cute, blue, grew, in). So now we know what the /U/ sounds like, we need to learn how we sometimes spell it. Today we are learning that the letters E and W come together to say /U/.

3. Say: We know that u says /U/, but what sounds do E and W make when alone. (let students answer) Thats right /e/ and /w/. But when we combine them it sounds like /U/. When we smell something gross we say ew, when we see e and w in words we say U! If something is ew within the word we make our mouths small like this to keep things that are ew out! See look [make vocal gesture for /U/] Now you try [make vocal gesture for U]. I am going to say some words with E and W that make the /U/ sound and if you hear the /U/ sound make a face like you saw something gross. (read words new, *students name*, flew, what, the, chew, dew) 

4. Say: Now we are going to practice spelling words that have e and w but say /U/. When its cold outside we make stew. Now lets make the word stew on the board. How many sounds do we hear in the word stew, lets say stew slowly /s/ /t/ /e/ /w/. How many sounds did we hear in that? Three that’s right. So we need to spell it out in three boxes. What letter comes first? S that’s right, Now /s/ /t/ /e/ /w/ we hear /t/ next so what letter would that be? Right T! Now for the third sound we hear /U/. Does anyone have any guesses for what letter or letters make that sound? (if not guessed say that we just talked about it). Thats right EW! The two letters come together as a team to make one sound so we put them together in one box. Now we are going to try another word Now I am going to let you try and put some letters in boxes on your own. 

5. Say: Sometimes it's hard to figure out which words will make the /U/ sound, so the best way to learn is to practice. We are going to practice by playing a game. [pass out bins and laminated word cards]. If you hear the /U/ sound in a word and see the EW letter team put it in the EW bin, if a word doesn’t make the /U/ sound we put it in this bin [show the not ew bin]. Allow students to read the words and go around and assess the correctness of their sound identification after they have all finished. 

6. Say: You all did so well putting the words in their bins, we are now going to pair up read a            poem about a boy who loved gum so much that something happened to him! We also are going to read about a boy who disobeyed his teachers and ended up in a really sticky mess.  Read more about these adventures when you are reading this poem with your partners. [walk around and monitor the reading of the poem to see if they have understood how to read the ew= /U/ in context] 

7. Say: What happened to the boy? Has that ever happened to any of you when you have chewed gum? NO!? Are you all sure?! What about Johnny? Have you guys ever broke the rules and gotten in trouble for it. 

8. Say: We are going to finish with one more activity! We are going to read some sentences that have ew= /U/ in them and you have to pick the word that goes in the sentence. 

Pass out Close the Gap worksheet and monitor students as they complete it to see if they understand how to read ew= /U/ words and if they know how to put them into context. 

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Resources: 

“Fluency Timed Reading.” Z, www.readinga-z.com/assessments/fluency-timed-reading/.

George Martin. The Beatles, London's EMI Studio, 26 Oct. 2020. 

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. Random House Childrens Publish, 2015.

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