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Rose Rode the Slope Alone!

BEGINNING READING DESIGN

By: Amy Maynard

Rationale:

This lesson focuses on the vowel correspondence o_e=/O/. Understanding correspondences is essential to learning to read. This correspondence is one that must be recognized in order to read efficiently and comprehensively because it is found in many common and familiar words. In this lesson, the students will learn to spell, recognize, and read words that contain o_e=/O/. The lesson incorporates a visual representation (someone yelling “NOOOO” with their hands up), a tongue tickler (“Rose Rode the Slope Alone!”), a letterbox lesson where spelling and reading of words with this correspondence will be exercised, and a suggestion for a decodable book that focuses on words with o_e=/O/.

Materials:

  1. Sound Picture

  2. Tongue Tickler Story for the correspondence o_e=/O/

  3. Gif of someone screaming “NOOOO” (linked in references. If you do not have a way to show this use a picture, drawing, or just a demonstration)

  4. A projector (if no projector is available, use a white board)

  5. Letterboxes (if not available, make worksheets with boxes printed on them for each problem)

  6. Letter tiles (if not available, use the worksheets explained above and a pencil to write in the boxes)

  7. Cards with o_e=/O/ words on them (a printed list will also work)

  8. Is Jo Home? (Or another book that practices the long O correspondence)

  9. Pencils for students

  10. Sheet with 10 of the words listed in resources printed out for students to read from for their assessment

  11. Words and pseudowords for reading and assessment:

    • Rope

    • Robe

    • Mote

    • Shone

    • Cone

    • Tome

    • Role

    • Slope

    • zone

    • broke

    • those

    • lome

    • Nove

    • Code

    • Nope

    • Mode

    • Tode

    • Note

    • Chose

    • jope

Procedures:

  1. Say: “Hello class! Today we are going to learn a new sound that the letter O can make. What sound do we already know for the letter O?” The students should reply: “O says /o/!” Say: “Very good! That is called short O. Today we are going to practice long O that is caused by a silent e. o _e says /O/.

  2. Pull up gif of someone yelling “NOOOOO”. There is a link located under “resources” below. Say: “Now we will learn how to say this sound. When there is an O followed by a silent e it sounds like when you scream “NOOOOO” (put your hands up to demonstrate the sound) Let’s all say it together!” (go over the sound with the class a couple times).

  3. Say: ”Now we will learn a tongue tickler with a story to practice the correspondence. There once was a girl named Rose. Every year her family took a trip to go sledding down the slopes. But, Rose was always scared to sled by herself so she usually rode with her big brother Josh. This year, however, was different. As they approached the top, Rose grabbed the sled from Josh and went down the slope all by herself. “Rose rode the slope alone!” Josh yelled. And they all cheered.” Now let’s all say that together! Rose rode the slope alone! (now say it as a group a few times). Now let’s hold the /O/ sound. Ready Rooooooose Roooooode the sloooooooope aloooooone.”

  4. Now you will complete the letterbox segment of the lesson. Pull out a projector and show your letterboxes or simply draw 4 boxes on a board. Say: “When practicing spelling with letterboxes, we must remember that every sound goes in its own box. And when we have a word with a silent e (like in this case) the e goes outside the last box. So, first we are going to practice a word together and then you will try a few on your own. The word we are going to do requires 4 boxes. The word is slope.” Practice sounding out and spelling the word in the letter boxes. Say: “sssssss – lllllll – oooooooo – ppppp. S – L – O – P slop says “slop” so I need to add that sneaky E to make it ssssllooppee.”

  5. Say: “Now I am going to have you try to spell some words on your own.” Either have students pull out their own letterboxes and tiles, pass them out, or pass out worksheets with boxes that they can write on (this demonstration script is for if they have their own boxes and letter tiles). Say: “The first letter I want you to try on your own is going to need 3 boxes (pause for them to get their boxes ready). The word is robe.” Allow students a few minutes to figure out this word and walk around to make sure everyone is understanding (you can even have a child come up to the front and demonstrate if desired). Say: “Very good! Any questions? Now your second word needs 3 boxes as well. This word is zone.” Do the same as before. Say: “Excellent! Any questions? The third word is going to need 4 boxes. This word is broke.” Do the same as before. Say: “Looks great. Any questions? Your fourth word needs 3 boxes. The word is those.” Do the same thing as before. Say: “Looks perfect. Does anyone have any questions? (pause for questions) Alright, if not then we are going to move on to reading some words.”

  6. Pull out the cards or sheet with the letterbox words printed on it. Say: “Okay now we will practice reading some of the words we just spelled. First I will show you an example.” Hold up the card or show the word that says slope. Say: “Okay so in order to figure out this word I will break down each sound. Sssssss llllllllll ooooo ppppp Slop! But I can’t forget the silent E makes the O say /O/. Slope! The word is slope. Okay now I have some words for you to try!” Hold up each word from the list until every student has had a chance to read one. Make sure to include at least one pseudoword. There is a list of 20 words and pseudowords in the resources section.

  7. Now it is time to move on to the book part of the lesson. A good book for this is Is Jo Home? By Matt Gomez. Say: “Now students we will practice the new sound we have learned by reading the book Is Jo Home?. This book is about a little dog that is friends with a little girl named Jo. One day the little dog goes to visit Jo and see if she can play. Do you think she will be home? We will just have to read and find out!” Read the book with the class. At the end say: “Can anyone tell me what this book was about?” allow the students to respond.

  8. Say: “Now you are going to show what you know. I will call everyone over individually and have you read a few words that practice what we just learned.”

Assessment:

For an assessment choose about 10 words off the list in resources and have each student come up and read 3 words (chosen by the teacher). This will be good practice for the students and it is individual so they can show what they really learned.

Resources:

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