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EEEK! There’s a Bee!

Grace Sanders

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Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the vowel correspondence ee=/E/.  In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map out word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling ee. They will learn a meaningful representation (a buzzing bee), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a letterbox lesson and read a book that focuses on the correspondence ee=/E/.

 

Materials: Graphic image of a buzzing bee; cover-up critter; whiteboard letterboxes for modeling and individual letterboxes for each student: b, e, e, c, h, k, f, t, s, d, n, r; list of spelling words on whiteboard to read:bee, feet, cheek, seed, bed, screen; decodable text Lee and the Team and an assessment sheet for each student. 

 

Procedures:1. Say: To become expert readers, we need to learn the secret language that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned how to read short vowel e so today we are going to learn about long E and the doubleesignal that is used to make E say its name, /E/. When I say /E/ I think of a funny kid saying “Eeeek!” because he sees a bee and is scared of it.  

 

2. Say: Now we’re going to look at the spelling of /E/ that we will learn today. When I listen for /E/ in words, I hear the e say its name /E/ and it is shown with my teeth like this. (Point to your teeth and make the vocal sound for /E/). Now we are going to listen for it in some different words. I’ll show you first with the word meet. As I say this word I feel my mouth open wide to make my teeth visible. There is a long vowel E in meet. Let’s try another word like ten. I didn’t hear the same e say its name and make my mouth open to show all of my teeth. Now, I want you all to try for yourselves. We are going to pretend that we are outside on the playground. If you hear /E/ in the word, say “Eek, there’s a bee!” and point to your teeth but if you do not hear /E/ say “no bee”. Is it in red, set, sheep, feet, dog, seed, leaf? 

 

3. Say: Next we are going to look how we would spell /E/ in a word. The way we are learning today is with two letter e’s right next to each other in words. (Write ee on the board). There might be consonants before or after the two e’s in the word. What if I am spelling the word tree. Like, “when I look outside, there are many trees in my yard.” In order to use the letterboxes to spell the word I need to first know how many phonemes are in the word. To do this, I stretch out the word like /t/ /r/ /E / and so I would need three letterboxes because there are three phonemes. The word starts with /t/ so that will go in the first letter box and then next I heard /r/ so I will put that in the second letterbox after /t/. Next it gets a little trickier, we have the tr, but we need the end of the word. Say it slow and you get /t/ /r/ and then I heard the /E/ so I put the ee in the third letterbox. So now we have /t/ /r/ /E/, tree, and we’re all done! 

 

4. Say: Now that I’ve showed you how to use the letterboxes, you are now going to try to spell some words on your own. To start we will use two letterboxes for the word bee. “We know that one especially what we do when we see a bee, we get scared.” What do you think should go in the first letterbox? What about the second box? And don’t forget that we put the ee in the same letterbox no matter where it is in the word. I will check each of your spellings as I walk around to help. The next word is a little trickier, we are going to add another letterbox to spell the word feet. “We use our two feet to walk on”. Remember to listen for the beginning correspondence and each after that including where the ee goes and that it goes in the same box. (Give the students time to spell words). Time to check your spelling as I spell the word on the board with my letterboxes: f-ee-t. Good job! Now try another word with three letterboxes: cheek. “Your cheeks look red, have you been outside?” This time I want one of you to come up to the board and we will all check our answer with how you spell it and then we will continue to do this for each word. The next word is bed. “I always get in my bed by 9 o’clock every night”. Did you hear the /E/ and the double ee in this word? Why not? Exactly, we do not hear the e say its name in bed like we would with /E/. The word bed uses the short vowel e instead of the long vowel /E/ we are learning now. (Allow child to come up to the board and spell the word). You spelled it right! Next, we are going to spell the five-phoneme word: screen. “You can look at the screen to see how to spell the word”. 

 

5. Say: We are now going to read the words we just spelled! I will show you how I would read a word and then you will do the same. (model reading the word for them). The first thing that I notice is the double ee in the middle of the word which is how I know that it will say its name. Next, I will use my coverup critter to help me get the beginning of the word and what is after it. (Uncover the letters as you go and blend the letters sequentially before the vowel, then blend together with the vowel included). /s/ /c/ = /sc/ + /r/ = /scr/ then add in the vowel /E/ to make it /scrE/ and add the last letter to compelte the word /scrEn/ to get screen. That’s all you have to do, now it is your turn! (Have students take turns reading the words on the board aloud so each one of them gets a turn).  

 

6. Say: Since you all are doing such a great job spelling and reading words with /E/ we are going to read a book on it. The book is called Lee and the Team. In this story, Lee is a coach for a baseball team. They have a game today, but they are running late so the team is having to rush. Lee tells the team to hurry but they don’t want to run, as they sit outside they see a bee. The bee lands on Lee’s foot, will the team and their coach make it to the game on time? Let’s all read this story to find out! First, read this story to yourself and then we will read the book together as a class. 

 

7. Say: That’s a great story! What did you all think of it? Did the team end up making it to the game like Lee wanted them to? Exactly, even though there was a bee they refused to be late! The last thing we are going to do to finish up this lesson is for each of you to complete a worksheet on what we’ve learned today! On this worksheet, there are some letters missing in the words and I want you to look at the pictures and figure out what those letters are. Then, I will call on each of you to come up and read aloud a word that I give to you."  (When finished, collect the worksheets after they finish and grade to assess their knowledge of the lesson). 

 

References: 

Decodable Text: Lee and the Team, Sheila Cushman, Phonics Readers

Assessment Worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/my-rhyming-book-3/

Reading Genie: Carson Williams, "Eek, a Bee!" https://carcarwilly.wixsite.com/mysite/br-design,

Rachel Lee, "Ow! My Toe!"https://sassyrach88.wixsite.com/auburnedu/beginging-reader

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