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Beginning Reading Design: Say Cheese with EE!

 

 

Rationale:

The purpose of this lesson will be to help beginning readers identify the correspondence ee=/E/. Students will learn the analogy of grinning very wide and saying “Cheeeeese” for the sound /E/ as well as the grapheme ee used in reading/writing this phoneme. They will practice spelling words with this correspondence and then reading these words off a list to build fluency with ee. Students will then practice by reading a decodable text with their new correspondence.

 

Materials:

You will need a white board or piece of paper, something to write with, colorful “letter boxes” (small squares cut out of cardstock or paper), a complete set of letter tiles for the student to manipulate (s, two e’s, f, t, r, p, k, m, c, h, n), a list of large print words with the ee=/E/ correspondence for the student to spell and later read (SEE, FEET, TREE, PEEK, MEET, CHEER, SCREEN); coverup critter; a copy of the Mean Geese for the student to decode; assessment worksheet.

 

Procedures:

  1. Say: in order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned how to read short vowel words with e, like get, peg, and legs, and today we are going to learn about words that have two Es in them to make the long E sound, /E/. When you say /E/, I want you to smile as big and wide as you can, like you are saying “cheese” for a picture. (Model for student by grinning and stretching out the /E/ sound). Optional hand gesture: point to dimples while smiling.  One way we can spell /E/ is with the letters ee. (Write ee on whiteboard or paper). When I see these two e’s together, I know to say /E/.

  2. Say: lets practice listening for /E/ in some words so that it will be easier for us to read and spell it later. When I listen for the /E/ sound, I am listening for E to say its name and I will feel my mouth stretch into a smile from side to side to make the sound /E/ (dramatize saying /E/ while smiling widely). Let’s see if we can hear /E/ in these words. I’ll go first: sleep. I heard E say its name in the middle of sleep and I felt my mouth stretch out into a smile. Let’s try another word: cap. Hmmmm I don’t hear E say its name in cap and my mouth doesn’t make a smile, so it must not have ee. Now you try! Do you hear /E/ in creek? dance? Steep? Flee?

  3. Now let’s practice spelling some words. What if I want to spell cheek? “I kissed my baby brother on the cheek”. Let’s count how many mouth moves are in cheek so I know how many letter boxes I need to spell it. /ch/ /E/ /k/. That’s 3 mouth moves so I need 3 letterboxes The word starts with the /ch/ sound, so I know I need a c and an h in the first box. I know I hear the /E/ sound in the middle of cheek so I will put ee in the middle box. Now I have /ch/ /E/. I need to spell /ch/ /E/ /k/, so I just need one more sound at the end. /k/ sounds like k, so I will put a k in the last box. Now I have cheek.

Let me show you how I would read a word (show street on whiteboard or paper).  I see my ee in the middle of this word, so I know that part says /E/. I see an s at the beginning, which says /s/. Next is a t, that sounds like /t/. After that is an r, I know that sounds like /r/. Now I have /s//t//r//E/. There’s another t at the end of this word so I will put the /t/ sound again at the end. /s//t//r//E//t/, oh street!

  1. Now I want you to practice spelling some words in the letterboxes just like I did. Let’s start off with two boxes for see, “when it is dark outside, I cannot see”. Now let’s try a word with three boxes: feet, “my brother has smelly feet”. Continue to provide words with accurate number of letter boxes and example sentences until student has completed all words (SEE, FEET, TREE, PEEK, MEET, CHEER, SCREEN)

  2. Say: great job spelling all those words! Now let’s read them off a list. Show student large print list of words (including pseudoword SMEEP) and have them read the words out loud, using coverup critter to scaffold if necessary.

  3. Say: now that you have had some practice reading and spelling words with ee, let’s read this story called The Mean Geese. This is a story about a dog named Lad and his friend Scat who is a cat. When they run into a group of mean geese, Lad tries to help Scat protect her kittens. Let’s read the book to find out what happens to them. (Have student read book out loud to you; stop after every few pages to discuss the plot).

  4. Assessment: Have students try the worksheet on their own to identify words with the /E/ sound to describe the pictures.

 

Resources:

Shannon, S . https://sydneyyshann.wixsite.com/my-site/beginning-reading

The Mean Geese, Murray, G. https://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Murray/e/B07VH5LHWG?ref_=pe_1724030_132998060  

Assessment Worksheet http://www.enchantedlearning.com/phonics/mc/e-long/

eeee smile.jpg
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