Ms. Armstrong

Rationale:  Students need to be able to recognize and identify letters. This lesson focuses on short a, /a/, and how to help students identify it. Through this lesson, students will learn to recognize /a/ in spoken words through a representation and a letter symbol, and also by practicing locating /a/ in various words.  

 

Materials:

  1. Chart with “Alice asks for axes” (3x)

  2. Primary paper

  3.  Pencil

  4. Markers/Crayons/Colored Pencils

  5. Cat Nap

  6. White board

  7. Worksheet with picture/words

  8. Scissors

  9. Glue

  10. /a/ worksheet (link in assessment)

Procedures:
1. Start off by explaining to students that we are going to focus on the letter “a” and the sound that goes with it, /a/. As you become more familiar with the sound /a/ and the way your mouth moves when you say that sound, it will help you to recognize it in written words as well as be able to hear it in spoken words. Explain to students that in order to make the many different sounds in our language, we have to move our mouths in numerous different ways. We must be able to recognize written letters and match them up with their specific sound.

2. Ask students: Describe what the sound is when you get scared and yell? Right, it sounds like “Aaaaa, HELP ME!” Tell them that the sound for /a/ sounds like when they yell for help. Make sure the students focus on the “Aaaaa” and tell them that this is the way our mouth makes the sound /a/. Your tongue is at the bottom of your mouth while your jaw drops and your mouth opens wide. Let’s pretend we got scared and put our hands on our cheeks and open our mouths and say /a/. Today we are going to focus on this sound and listen for it in different words.
 
3. Now let’s try a tongue twister together, I will hold this chart and we will read the tongue twister together. The tongue twister is, “Alice asks for axes.” Let’s all say it together three times. Now let’s say it again but this time stretch out our /a/ sound at the beginning of the words and make your scared face. “Aaaaalice aaaaasks for aaaaaxes.”

4. Now I am going to say a series of different words and have the students spot which has the /a/ sound. I will first say both words together, then I will say raise your hand if you hear /a/ in the first word or the second word. Do you hear /a/ in cat or moon?  Barn or door?  Man or girl?

5. Now that the sound /a/ has started to become recognizable with the students, I want to begin focusing on how to write this new letter. I want everyone to take out primary paper and pencil and we will write a to spell /a/. Watch me first on the white bored then we will all go together. First, start a little below the “fence” and then curve up to the “fence” and then all the way around down to the “sidewalk” and then back up to where you started a bit below the “fence.” Finally, draw a line straight back down to the “sidewalk.” After I see your first a, I want you to write it again, a total of ten times.

6. Book Talk: Have any of ever seen a fat cat before? Tab is a fat, sleepy cat. He takes tons of naps, but it gets him in a situation when he falls asleep is his owner’s, Sam, bag. You will have to read to find out where Tab ends up. After the book talk, we will read Cat Nap and talk about the story. We will then read it a second time and the students will make the /a/ sound and make their “scared faces” when they hear it in the story and I will record the words on the board.

 

7. Assessment:  A worksheet with words and pictures with the /a/ sound and other words that do not, I will tell the students to color the pictures of the words that have the /a/ sound and to cut them out a glue them on to a piece of construction paper and leave alone the words that do not have the /a/ sound. Click here for the worksheet.

 

 

References:

• Bails, Susan. A Cat Nap. Carson, CA. Educational Insights. 1990. 11 pages.

 

• Tongue Twisters from A to Z

http://www.schooljokes.com/tongue_twisters/index.shtml

 

• Willams, Britany, Aaaaa There is a Spider!

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/williamsel.html

 

• Zorn, Elizabeth, Aaaaa Choo!!! http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/catalysts/zornel.html

 

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