Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the vowel correspondence of short u, or /u/. In order to be able to read fluently and effortlessly, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map out word pronunciations. In this lesson students will be exposed to the phoneme /u/ by being introduced to a meaningful real world analogy of a caveman looking confused and saying “uuuhh.” Students will learn to recognize /u/ in spoken words, be able to spelling using the u, and read words containing the phoneme /u/.
Materials:
Overhead projector
Pencils and coloring materials of choice
Picture of caveman saying “uuuhh” with the correspondence u = /u/
Letter boxes for modeling and individual letter boxes for each student
Letter tiles for each teacher and child
u, p, j, g, g, m, l, n, c, h, d, b, p, r, t
Printed list of reading words for after LBL spelling
Decodable text: The Mutt and The Bug by Cheryl Ryan
Assessment worksheet
Procedures:
1. In order to become fluent readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today, we are going to learn about short u. Short u makes the sound “uuuhh.” When I say /u/, It reminds me of when I am confused and don’t know what is going on [Show image]. Just like this confused cave man I would say “uuuhh what?” Let’s all try being confused like this caveman! Scratch your head and say” uhh” like you’re confused when I show you the picture of the caveman. Good job!”
2. When I make the sound of /u/, my mouth is open and my tongue is resting at the bottom of my mouth. The sound is coming from the back of my throat. (Model how your mouth should look when saying /u/). Let’s practice saying /u/. Did you see how your mouth moves each time you say /u/?
3. Now we are going to say a fun tongue ticklers to practice /u/! I will say it first, and then you can repeat three times it after I finish. [printed on paper] “Ulma was upset when uncle said her umbrella was ugly.” Now it is your turn [Let them repeat the tongue tickler 3 times] Could you hear the /u/ sound like someone was confused and saying “uuhhh” when you said that? Lets try stretching out each /u/ we hear. [point to mouth and tongue] “Uuuuuulma was uuuupset when uuuuuncle said her uuuuumbrella was uuuugly.”
4. Before we learn about the spelling of /u/, we need to listen for it in some words. I am going to say two words and I want each of you to listen for the special /u/ sound in the words. I will read both words and then call on good listeners who raise their hands to tell me which word you hear the confused cavemen “uuhh” in it. For example, I would say: “mat or rug?” Good, ruuug! Car or bus? Lack or luck? Moon or sun? Nate or nut? Cup or plate?
5. Let’s look at the spelling of words with the confused /u/ sound. First we will spell hunt. “My dad loves to hunt deer.” To spell hunt in our letterboxes, I first need to know how many phonemes there are. The number of phonemes is similar to the different number of letter sounds you hear. Let’s stretch it out and count: /h/ /u/ /n/ /t/. I need four boxes. I heard that confused /u/ just after the h so I am going to put the /u/ in the second letterbox. The word starts with a /h/ so I am going to put that in the first box. Now I have /h/ /u/. The /n/ comes after the /u/ so I am going to put that in the 3rd box. The last sound I hear is /t/ so I am going to put the letter “t” in the fourth box. (Point to the letters in boxes when stretching out the word]. Now we have spelled the word hunt!”
6. Now you are going to try to spell words on your own. First you with start with two boxes. We are going to spell “up.” When I let go of the balloon, it floated up, up, up into the sky What should go in the first box? What should go in the second box? I will walk around and observe your spellings. [observe progress]. Once you’ve spelled up we will move on to the next word.
For the next word you will need three letter boxes. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the each box. The next work is “jug.” I was so thirsty after my run I could drink a whole jug of gatorade. Watch how I spell the word with my letterboxes on the board and see if you spelled it the same way. Good, now try another with three boxes. The word is gum. The teacher says we are not allowed to chew gum in school. Lets see everyone spell gum independently with their letteboxes. [walk around, observe progress, talk through wrong spellings, demonstrate correct upfront].
Still using three letter boxes, our next word is sick; I went to the doctor because I was sick.” [use other words: bug, lunch, hand, bump, runt, crust.] Have volunteer to come up and spell it in the letterbox on the front board.
7. Now we’re going to do some reading. We’re going to read the words we just spelled in our letter boxes. Keep in mind our caveman that says “uhhhh” as we read these words. [Model reading by decoding with a cover up critter on the overhead with the word hunt.] i’m going to use my cover-up critters to see the /u/, then the /h/, put together to make “hu.” Next we will uncover the /n/ and the /t/. When we put all the sounds together we get hunt! Now it’s your turn to read all these words out loud together. [Point to each word and have the students read them out loud, then call on individual students to try reading a word from the list on their own until everyone has had a turn. “Up, jug, gum, bug, lunch, hand, bump, runt, crust, thunch.”
8. You have done such a great job reading words with our new correspondence u = /u/. Now we are going to read a book The Mutt and The Bug. Everyone pull the book out and place it on your desk. We can see on the cover we have our friends the bug, and the mutt who looks pretty annoyed. The mutt is hanging out on his rug when the bug comes around! Our friend the bug just wants a hug but Mr. Mutt here doesn’t look like he wants any affection from the bug. I know I can relate to the feeling of wanting a warm hug from a friend. Let’s read and find out what the bug does about wanting a hug.
9. Assessment: To finish our lesson, we are going to complete this fun worksheet. On this sheet, there are several pictures for you to look at. First I want you to look at the pictures and fill in the missing letter for the correct spelling of the word. Then, if that word says /u/ like our confused caveman- you can color the item. But remember if the pronunciation of the word does have /u/, and is not spelled with our letter u, then do not color it. (Collect worksheets to evaluate each student’s progress). Phonics is fun!!
References:
Ward, Maribeth; Uuuuuuuuhhhhh? I Don’t Understand: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/wardbr.html
Ballard, Brittany; Uhh--I Need an Umbrella!!: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/journeys/ballardbr.htm
My Teaching Station, Short vowel Sound Practice Worksheet: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/79/21/1f/79211fa6dd48cf9bc77f66e4c11f3b6f--vowel-activities-spelling-activities.jpg
Ryan, Cheryl. The Mutt and The Bug. Decodable book 21, Reading A - Z
UUUHHH WHAT?
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