The Excited E Says “eek”!!!

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Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence ee= /E/. In order to be able to read, children 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 ee. They will learn a meaningful representation (the excited E), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence ee= /E/.

 

Materials:

1. Graphic image of excited girl saying “eek”

2. Cover-up critter

3. Whiteboard or smartboard

4. Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student

5. Letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smart board letters for teacher: b, c, e, g, k, m, p, r, s, t

6. List of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: bee, eek, meet, peek, greet, screen

7. Decodable Text: “Long Vowel E Dee”

8. Worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/the-ee-vowel-team/

 

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 to read short vowel words with e, like bed, and today we are going to learn about long /E/. When I say /E/ I think of an excited girl jumping in the air saying “eek”! [show graphic image].

 

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /E/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /E/ in words, I say its name /E/ and my lips spread apart and my tongue goes to the side of the roof of my mouth like this. [Make vocal gesture for /E/.] I’ll show you first: eek. I heard e say its name and I felt my lips come apart. There is a long E in feet. Now I’m going to see if it’s in red. Hmm, I didn’t hear e say its name and my lips didn’t come apart like they should. Now you try. If you hear /E/ say, “eek.” If you don’t hear /E/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in pet, eel, sheep, web, ten, need?

 

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /E/ that we’ll learn today. The way to spell /E/ is with the letter e and the letter e back to back. [Write ee on the board.]  Think of the letter e like it has a twin and they never separate. What if I want to spell the word feed? “If I feed the baby, he’ll stop crying.” Feed means “to give food” to in this sentence. To spell feed in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /f/ee/d /. I need 3 boxes. I heard that /E/ just before the /d/ so I’m going to put an ee in the 2nd box. The word starts with /f/, that’s easy; I need an f. I think I heard /d/ so I’ll put a d right after the second e.

 

4.Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for bee. The word “bee” is short for “bumblebee”. “Bees make honey that is very yummy.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress.] You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /E/. Here’s the word: meet, “I meet up with my friend for lunch; meet.” [Allow children to spell words.]  Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: m –ee –t and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: peek; “I took a peek at my presents.” [Have volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word.] Next word. Listen to see if this word has /E/ in it before you spell it: vet; “I took my dog to the vet”. Did you need two e’s in vet? Right, because we don’t hear e say its name. We spell it with our long vowel e.  [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Now, let’s try it with 4 phonemes: greet; “I will greet the man at the door.” One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: screen; “The movie screen was huge.” Remember to stretch it out to get this tough word.

 

5. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with screen on the top and model reading the word.]  First, I see there’s a double e; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] /s//c/ = /sc/ + /r/ = /scr/. Now I’m going to blend that with /E/ = /scree/. Now all I need is the end, /n/ = /screen/.  Screen; 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’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /E/: ee. Now we are going to read a book called “Long Vowel e Dee”. This is a story of a boy named Dee who has a pet dog named Zeke. Dee and Zeke have to find their friend Lee. Let’s pair up and take turns reading the book so we can find Lee. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads aloud “Long Vowel e Dee” together and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

 

7. Say: That was a fun story. Where was Lee? Did they find him? Right, he was asleep. Who met Lee? Right, Zeke, the dog did. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /E/ = ee, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have some words missing. Your job is to look in the box of word choices and decide which ee word fits best to make sense of this very short story. First try reading all the words in the box, then choose the word that fits best in the space. Reread your answers to see if they make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]

 

Resources:

Bruce Murray, The Reading Genie, http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/

 

Langman, Meredith. Beep! Please Move! Beginning Reading Design. https://meredithlangman.wixsite.com/readinglessons/beginning-reading

 

Assessment Worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/the-ee-vowel-team/

https://www.freephoneticreaders.com/long-vowel-books/long-e/long-vowel-e-with-dee

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/insights/