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Oh, I hear O!

Katherine Apel

Beginning Reading

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Rationale: Students will be learning the long vowel correspondence o_e = /O/. In order to become a fluent reader, students must learn the rules of the alphabetic code. With learning what makes up the alphabetic code, comes phonics. In this lesson, students will identify o_e words and accurately decode their /O/ sound by relating it to a lightbulb turning on when you understand something new. When the lightbulb turns on in our brain, we connect the dots and say “Oh, I get it now.” Students will listen for, read, write, and spell o_e words. Students will engage in a letter box lesson and read a decodable story. 

 

Materials: White board, markers, paper, pencils, letterboxes for each student, letter tiles for each student (o, e, r, s, m, k, t, d, c), Decodable Ode Story for each student, large poster paper with list of words (Globe, broke, ore, score, smoke, strode, tove), assessment worksheet ( https://www.pinterest.com/pin/84653667967793603/


 

Procedures:

 

  1. Say: In order to grow our brains and become fluent readers, we need to keep learning  our alphabetic code. Today, we will first listen for and then read, write, and spell words that have a similar sound. We have already understood how to read o = /o/ words like dog, block, stomp, and stop. Today we are going to look at our long O vowel sound when there is a silent e at the end. When I found out what sound this made, I said OH! Our o_e = /O/ says OH! It is just like when a lightbulb comes on in your brain when you learn something new and say, “OH! I get it”!

  2. Say: Before we spell or even read to search for our /O/ words, we need to know what it sounds like first! When I hear /O/ I say “Oh!” and I put my finger up like I remembered something / learned something. In order to say it, I make an o shape with my mouth (show students, circle an o around your mouth). My mouth starts out with a larger O and as I say /O/, it gets a little smaller! [Say /O/ a few times dramatically to show students] I am going to say a few words and see if I can find /O/ in any of them. First word is globe. Hmmmm, g-l-O! OH, I hear O! Let’s keep going: G-l-O-b(e)! Let’s see if I can find it in clock. C-l-o-ck. That sounds like our short /o/ we learned before. Can you lift your finger up when you hear O = /O/ in the following words? Drove, Grace, Stone, Spoke, Dog, and School. 

  3. Say: Why is this o saying /O/ instead of /o/? Well, when I said the word globe, it had a silent e which signaled for me to say /O/ instead of /o/. [Write o_e on the board] This is our signal for our “Oh! That is O!” sound. When I look at o_e, I know that the blank stands for a consonant. I could put a ‘d’ in the blank to say ode. I know to say O with our long /O/ sound because of that silent e at the end. Let’s look at some more words with our letterboxes. [Teacher models letterboxes on the board] I have the word broke. I broke my favorite flower vase. (OH! nO!) To know how many boxes I need, I first need to know how many sounds / phonemes are in broke. I hear b - r - O - k. So, I will need four boxes. My lightbulb in my head lit up for me to hear /O/ right after r so I am going to put o in my third box. I am going to put my silent e outside of the fourth box. Now I have my o_e says /O/. When I say broke, I hear /b/, /b/, /b/ b/in the beginning which leads me to putting b in our first box. Moving on, b-r-r… I hear /r/ like a growling dog so I am going to put r in our second box. Now I have [b] [r] [o] [_] e. I am missing our clicking sound /k/ which is our letter k. Awesome! Now I have a full word:

 

[B] [R] [O] [K] e

 

  1. Say: Now it is your turn! Everyone has their own letterboxes and tiles and I want us all to practice hearing and spelling o_e = /O/. Our first word is ore. I found some iron ore in a cave! Ore is a rock that has other minerals in it. So, how many letter boxes do we need for ore? What goes in the first box? What goes in the second? Where is our e? Great! Our e should be outside of our second box. Our next word has four letter boxes. Our word is score. My goal was to score a point at my soccer game! Before you put your letter tiles down, think about where /O/ is in score. Think about what goes at the end. [Walk around the room to help and monitor progress] [After a couple minutes, spell it in the boxes on the board] I spelled score like this. I knew that I heard /O/ after /k/ which would be my third letterbox. Then, I knew that my silent e was outside of my fourth box. I heard my slithering snake /s/ in the beginning, clicking /k/ after, and growling /r/ in between o_e. I ended up with score! How did everyone do? Our next word has four letterboxes again. Our word is smoke. The bonfire made my clothes smell like smoke! After you finish, discuss how you spelled smoke with your friend next to you. [Observe each student individually and then with their partner] (After a few minutes show on the board...) Does everyones look like [S] [M] [O] [K] e? [Discuss any confusion] Our next word has five letter boxes. Our word is strode. Strode means taking big steps. The horse strode across the field. After you individually spell strode, discuss with your friend! [Give enough time for everyone to finish] [Show on the board] Does everyone have [S] [T] [R] [O] [D] e? [Discuss any questions]. [Additional words to disperser in lesson: sit, cat, bet]

  2. Say: Before we read the words that you have spelled, let me show you how I would read the word choke. First, I see o and its silent e at the end. I know that o_e gives me our /O/ sound so I am going to make sure I say Oh! If I use my cover up to only see the first letter, I would say /k/. Next there is an h which gives me a /h/ sound. If I try to mix my /k/ and /h/ sound it doesn’t seem to work. What if they were one sound? If I cover up everything except ch, it gives us a /ch/ sound. I already know my O sound. CH- O. I see a k which sounds like /k/. I read /ch/+ /O/ + /k/. I am going to blend it all together to get ch-o-ke … choke! Now, I want us all to read these words… [words are pre-written on a large poster paper] Globe, broke, ore, score, smoke, strode, tove. [After students read together, ask for students to read them individually and explain how to read them if some are confused]

  3. Say: We found o_e = /O/ in all of these words! Great job! Now we are going to read the story Ode written by Trish Mylet. This is a story about Ode and her cat Obe. Ode is eating ice cream and it seems like someone else wants some as well… Who do you think wants some? Will Ode give them some? Let’s read to Ode to find out! [Each student takes time to read by themselves and then partners up to read to each other. After everyone is done, discuss as a class and go through the story]

  4. Say: My friends have done such a good job at learning o_e = /O/. Before we move on, I want us all to complete an activity by ourselves. There are six sentences on the left and six words on the right. Read the sentence and decide which word from the right fits with that sentence. Hint: it is supposed to rhyme with the bold word in the sentence! Make sure to look for that o_e! [After students are finished, collect the worksheet and decide how well the students understood the lesson]



 

Resources: 

 

Geri Murray, Oh, I Didn’t Know! https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/beginning-reading 

Mylet, T. Ode. Free Phonetic Readers: https://www.freephoneticreaders.com/long-vowel-books/long-o/long-vowel-o-with-ode

Assessment worksheet: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/84653667967793603/ 

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