Rationale:  This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence u_e=/U/. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words with u_e. They will learn long u reads the letter. They will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence u_e=/U/

Materials: Cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each student and for teacher: t, u, b, e, c, J, n, h, r, i, k, s, f, l; poster with list of words: use, cute, tube, June, chute, run, flute. Decodable text: Stu’s Tune, and assessment worksheet.

Procedures:

1. Say: In order to become a skilled reader, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We know how to read short vowel words with u, like cut, and today we are going to learn about long U and the silent e signal that is used to make U say its name /U/.

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /U/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen to /U/ in words, I hear u say its name /U/ and my lips stick out a little bit to form a circle. [Make vocal gesture for /U/.] I’ll show you first: huge. I heard u say its name and felt my lips stick out and make a circle. There is a long U in huge. Now I’m going to see if its in crumb. Hmm I don’t hear u say its name and my lips didn’t poke out in a circle. I want you all to try. If you hear /U/ say “Hey you!” If you don’t hear /U/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in use? Fuse? Cream? Rule? Mark?

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /U/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /U/ is with the letter u and a signal e at the end of the word to tell me to say U’s name. [Write u_e on the board.] This blank line here means there is a consonant after u, and at the end of the word there is a little silent e signal. What if I want to spell the word flute? “When she plays the flute, it sounds beautiful.” Flute is an instrument in this sentence. To spell flute in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes are in the word so I’m going to stretch it out and count /f/ /l/ /U/ /t/. I need 4 boxes. I heard the /U/ just before the /t/so I’m going to put it in the 3rd box and the silent e  outside the last box. The word starts with /f/, so I need an f. I’m going to say flute to see what comes next, /f/ /l/ /U/ /t/. I think I heard /l/ so I’ll put that after the f. I have one empty box left. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /f/ /l/ /U/ /t/.] The last one missing is /t/=t.

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for use. “We are going to use our letterboxes to spell today.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers.] What goes in the second box? What about the silent e, did you remember to put it outside the last box? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress.] You need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /U/ and don’t forget to put the signal silent e at the end, outside the boxes. Here’s the word: cute, Mary has a cute dog named Callie.  [Allow children to spell words.] Let’s stop and check, watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: c- u- t- e and see if you spelled it the same way. Try another with 3 boxes: tube;  the experiment had multiple tubes connecting it all together. [Have a volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat for each new word.] Next word. Listen to see if this word has /U/ in it before you spell it: run; Be careful when you run on the playground. Did you need a silent e? No? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear u say its name. We spell it with our short vowel u. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] One more then we’ll be done with spelling. This time you need 4 boxes: flute, the musical notes from the flute sound very pretty. Remember to stretch it out slowly to get this 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. [Display poster with flute on the top and model reading the word.] First I see there’s a silent e on the end; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s the vowel u. It must say /U/. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] /f/ /l/= /fl/. Now I’m going to blend that with the /U/= /flu/. Now I just need the end, /t/ = /flUt/. Flute; that’s it! Now its your turn, I want everyone to read the words together. [Have children read words in unison. Afterwards call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /U/: u_e. Now we are going to read a book called Stu’s Tune. It is about a little boy who hears a nice tune and he enjoys hearing it, but then he hears it again, and again, and again. Lets pair up so that we can read about Stu and this tune he keeps hearing. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, we will reread Stu’s Tune aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

7. Say: That was a fun story. Have you ever had a tune or song stuck in your head? How do you get a song out of your head? Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /U/=u_e, I want to see if you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, there are four sentences, I want you to find the long u and the short u in each sentence. Circle the long u vowel in blue and the short u vowel in red. Then write the word in the corresponding list. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]

8. Resources:

Cushman, Sheila, and Rona Kornblum. Phonics Readers: Long Vowels Stu's Tune. Educational Insights, 1990.

Freeman, K. Let’s Go Fly a Kite http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/freemanbr.html

Baker, Brittany circle and sort

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engagements: http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/engagements/