Let’s Bake a Cake!
By: Brooke Scocos
Beginning Reading
Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence a_e = /A/. 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 a_e. They will learn a meaningful representation (baking a cake), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a letterbox lesson, and they will read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a_e = /A/.
Materials: Graphic image of a cake; cover-up critter; whiteboard and dry erase markers; letterboxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and teacher: g, a, e, p, l, v, b, r, k, d, t; list of spelling words on a whiteboard to read: grade, take, plate, grape, brave, brake, lap; decodable text: “Jane and Babe”; assessment worksheet.
Procedure:
1. Say: “Today we are going to learn a new vowel, which is long a and silent e. In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. With the letter A we already know that a=/a/, but what if we add on a silent e signal? This creates the long vowel /A/.”
2. Say: “Before we learn about the spelling of long A, we need to listen and find it in some words. When I listen for /A/ I hear the letter a say /A/. Let’s all say the word cake, and as we do think about what happens with your mouth as you get to the letter a; ccccc-AAAAA-kkkkk-eeeee. Now say it two more times: cake, cake. As I said the word cake, when I got to the vowel a, my mouth stretched to the sides and my tongue touched my bottom teeth. Now I’m going to see if I hear the long /A/ sound in tap. Hmm… I didn’t hear a say /A/ and my mouth didn’t stretch to the sides. Now you try. If you hear /A/ in a word, open your mouth very wide like you’re saying the /A/ sound. Is it in grade, take, plate, lap, grape? Great job!”
3. Say: “Now let’s look at the spelling of /A/. You spell /A/ with the letter a, a letter in the middle, and the letter e that is silent” (write a_e on a white board to demonstrate). “The space in the middle is reserving a place for another letter, which is a consonant. What if I want to spell the word bake? ‘We are going to bake a cake.’ To spell bake in the letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word. To find the phonemes, I am going to stretch out the word and count each time my mouth moves” (demonstrate on your fingers as you count): “/b/ /A/ /k/. I need 3 boxes.” (For the next section, demonstrate for the children by using your letterboxes to spell the word as they follow along) “In the first box, I will put the letter I hear at the beginning of the word, /b/, which is the letter b! Next, I heard the /A/ so I am going to put letter a in the 2nd box. We have /b/ /A/ -what do we hear next? I hear the /k/ sound next in bake, so in this case we use letter k. Now it can get tricky, so I’m going to say it slower, /b/ /A/ /k/. I hear a long /A/ sound, which means there is a silent e on the end. We spell bake just like this with a silent e at the end. Any time you have a letter that is silent, it goes outside of the letterboxes, /b/ /A/ k/ e.” (Point to the letters in the boxes as you stretch out the word).
4. Say: “Now I’m going to have you spell a few words in letterboxes. Let’s start with another word with 3 boxes: take. What letter should go in the first box?” (Respond to answer). “What goes in the second box? I’ll check and make sure you’re on the right track while I walk around the room. Did you remember where silent e goes? For the next couple of words, you will need four colored boxes. Listen for the sound at the beginning of the word, since this will go in your first box. Stretch the spelling out and put each letter you hear in a box. Remember one box for each phoneme, so each time your mouth moves and you hear a new sound use a different colored box. Here’s the word: grade.” (give children time to work on spelling the word) “Time to check your work! Watch how I spell the word grade in my boxes on the board and see if you spelled it the same; g-r-a-d-e. Did you remember that the silent e goes outside the fourth box? Let’s try another one with four boxes: plate.” (Give them some time to figure it out) “Next word: lap. Listen to see if this word has /A/ before you spell it; lap. Did you need a silent e?” (respond to answer) “Why not? Right, because we don’t hear /A/. We spell it with our short vowel, a. Let’s do a couple more words: grape. For this last one, you will need 5 boxes. Ready? The word is strafe. Remember to stretch out each sound that you hear.” (walk around the room to observe). Once everyone is finished, say: “We did it! Keep up the good work!”
5. Say: “Now I am going to let you read the words you just spelled, but first I am going to show you how to read a tough word.” (Write the word scrape on the whiteboard and model reading the word). “I see letter p between the a and the e, which means the a makes a long /A/ sound. I am going to use a cover up to get the first part of the word.” (Uncover and blend the letters before the vowel, then blend with the vowel). “/s//c/ = /sc/+/r/=/scr/. Next let’s blend those letters with our vowel /A/, /scrA/. Now all I have left is the ending, /p/ = /scrAp/. Scrape” that it! Now it’s your turn, everybody let’s try together.” (Children will read together, after call on students individually to read a word from the list until everyone has had one turn). Say: “We finished reading our words! You all did such an amazing job!”
6. Say: “You have done a really good job today! Now we are going to read a book called Jane and Babe. This is a story about Babe. Babe is a lion that is in a cage at the zoo. Jane goes into the cage with Babe and tries to wake him up in different ways. What will happen when Babe wakes up? We will have to read and see.” (Students will get with a partner and alternate reading a page aloud while the teacher comes around the room to observe. When partner reading is over we will read the book and discuss as a class).
7. Say: “That was a great story to read! Did Babe wake up and get to eat his dinner? Yes, that’s right! Now I want to see if you can identify the long /A/ sound we have been working on. On this worksheet, you will see many pictures with words to choose from on the top of the page. Look at the pictures and choose the word that represents the picture below.” (Collect worksheets and check answers to evaluate individual progress. Any students you notice who are having problems you should work with individually). Say: “Hooray! We did it! You all did such a fantastic job!”
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