Uhhhhh, Duh…
Rationale: This lesson will teach the children the short vowel correspondence u= /u/. This is a correspondence that is used in many words, and in order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson, students will learn and practice the pronunciations and spellings of words, thus being able to read them. They will be shown a photo of a cave man scratching his head saying Uhhhhh?, as well as practicing words with /u/ in letterbox lessons. At the end we will read a decodable book and do a practice worksheet
Materials:
Graphic image of a cave man scratching his head, cover up critter, letter box lesson set for modeling and individuals for each student. letter manipulatives for each student and magnetic or smartboard letters for the teacher: c, u, t, g, n, r, g, s, b, h p, l, m; List of words on poster or white board, primary paper, and pencil. Words: up, cut, sun, plum, grub, bug. Decodable Text: Nan the Nun, and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
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Say: “We are going to learn something new! Learning this letter and the sound it makes will help you read many more words and you will even see this in quite a of your future few sight words as well. You may have heard this sound in words like cut, and bug. It’s the ‘u’ sound that comes from the letter u. Whenever I think of the ‘u’ sound I always think of a confused caveman who’s scratching his head saying …’uh.. wait a minute!’ “. (show graphic image)
2. Say: “Just like we heard the ‘u’ sound in cut and bug, there are also other words we are able to hear it in. Whenever I say words like cut and bug, my mouth opens a little, and my tongue goes to the bottom. I’ll show you first: Shrug. I hear the /u/ sound and my tongue goes to the bottom of my mouth. Now I’m going to see if it’s in pus. It is! What about jar? Hmm, I didn’t hear the u sound in jar, and my tongue wasn’t in the bottom of my mouth. You can try it!”
3. Say: “Now that you know how to say “u” we are going to practice writing it. The little u starts in the middle line, or the fence, goes down to touch the sidewalk, and then curves back up to the fence. It’s important to remember that the u stays open at the top!” Now that you know how to write it yourself, you can find it in words! What if I tried to spell the word pug in these boxes? I saw the cutest pug! (hand out letterboxes and letter manipulatives) to spell pug in letter boxes I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /p/ /u/ /g/. I need 3 boxes. I heard the /u/ sound just before /g/ so I’m going to put it in the second box. The word starts with /p/, so we definitely know that one goes first.
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Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out very similar to what I did, with two boxes for the word up. Like if you were to jump up and down on a trampoline. “The cat ran up the stairs!” 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.] Let’s try another one: You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then, listen for /u/: cut. We cut the fruit! cut. [Allow children to spell words]. Let’s check. Watch how I spell it in my letter boxes on the board. c-u-t. Let’s try another one, but this one with four boxes. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Listen closely, because a sound can be made of more than one letter. Then, listen for /u/. Here’s the word: grub. Timone and Pumba love to grub on bugs ; grub [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: g – r – u– b and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with four boxes plum boxes: plum; I ate a plum for breakfast . [Have a volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new 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. For example, shrub. I see there’s a sh- sh sound at the beginning. Even though this is it’s own sound, it blends really well with the r that comes after it. Sh-shr. Then there’s the vowel u. It must say /u/ just like what our caveman is saying. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part. /sh/ = /sh/ + /r/ = /shr/. Now I’m going to blend that with /u/ = /shru/. Now all I need is the end, /b/ = /shrub/. Shrub; that’s it. Now it’s your turn, everyone together. Good job everyone now let’s read all of the other words on our list!
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Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /u/. Now we are going to read a book called Nan the Nun. Nan is a Nun who just wants to have fun! She’s feeling very down and glum, will she ever find something fun? Let’s pair up and take turns alternating who’s reading each page to see is Nan will find something to cheer her up!
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That’s was a fun story! Did Nan find any fun? Yes? What did Nan find fun? That’s right Nan found the drums super fun ; Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /u/, I want to see how you can solve some reading problems. On this worksheet your job is to color in the pictures of words that have the /u/ sounds, circle the words where you see and hear the /u/ sound and then write three words with the /u/ sound.
Resources:
Bruce Murray, Making Sight Words (2nd edition)
Kelsey Williams “Nan the Nun” http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/geniebooks/teacherbooks/
Worksheet: https://www.myteachingstation.com/short-u-sound-worksheet
http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/developments/
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