Miss Snow's Reading Lessons

Shhhh, the baby is sleeping!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Beginning Reading Lesson

 Kate Snow

 

Rationale: The lesson teaches children about the digraph sh which makes the phoneme /sh/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling sh. They will learn a meaningful representation (A mommy saying shh while the baby is sleeping), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the digraph and phoneme /sh/.

Materials:

1. Graphic image of a shh-ing ‘Sh’; shh-ing image of a mom holding sleeping baby

2. Whiteboard or smart board Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each letter

3. Letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: a, s, h, d, I, o, p, t, r, f, e

4. List of spelling words on poster or board to read: ash, dish, shop, trash, shelf, leash

5. Decodable text: The Crash in the Shed

6. Assessment worksheet

Procedures:

1. Say: In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned a lot of short and long vowels, and consonants that stand-alone. Now we are going to learn about two consonants that stand together and make another sound. We are going to work on the digraph and phoneme /sh/. When the letters s and h appear together in a word, they make a brand new sound – the /sh/ sound. When I say /sh/ I think of a mommy saying “SH!” to her little boy while the baby is sleeping. The mom could be saying “Shhhh, the baby is sleeping!” (show both graphic images to make sure they grasp it)

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /sh/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /sh/ in words, I hear a mom say “SH” and her teeth are together and her lips look like an oval and are puckered like a duck. (show kids by stacking teeth and making an oval with mouth and make the noise). There is a /sh/ in fish. Now I’m going to see if it’s in the word dog. Hmmm, I did not hear a mom shh-ing in that word and my lips didn’t poke out like a duck. If you hear /sh/ say, “Shhh, the baby is sleeping!” and if you don’t hear it say, “That’s not it!” Is it in hop, ship, fort, dash, back, ship, sock, trash? (have children stack their teeth and make pokey oval lips when they feel the mom say /sh/)

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /sh/ that we will learn today. We will take our letter s that makes the /s/ sound and then grab our h which makes a /h/ sound and put those two letters together to spell /sh/. What if I want to spell the word fish? “My fish lives and swims in a big bowl” To spell fish in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /f/ /i/ /sh/. I need three boxes. I heard the /sh/ at the very end so I will go ahead and put the /sh/ in the last box. The word starts with an /f/, that’s too easy; I need a f. Now it gets tricky with this next letter so I’ll say it slowly, /f/ /i/ /sh/. I think I heard /i/ so I’ll put an I right after the f. We spelled the word fish; very good job! (show with the correct number of letterboxes and tiles)

4. Say: Now I’m going to get you to spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for ash. Ash is like what you get after you have a fire and it burns out; the ash is what is left. What should go in the box first? (Respond to children’s answers). What goes in the second box? What two letters do you know go together? I’ll check to see if you put the correct two letters in their shared letterbox as I walk around. (Observe progress). You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for the /sh/ sound. Here is your word: dish, I ate my dinner on a blue dish; dish. (allow children to spell words) Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: d – i – s – h and see if you spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes; shop; I love to shop with my mom. (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.) Next word. Listen to see if the word has /sh/ in it before you spell it: soap; I was my body with soap when I bath. Did you hear the /sh/? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear the mom say /sh/. That’s because we don’t have an /s/ and an /h/ together. We only spell soap with an /s/. (volunteer spells it on front board). Did you remember to put the o and the a together to make the long /O/ sound? Now let’s try 4 phonemes: shelf; the shelf was too high for me to reach. One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: shrimp; I ate shrimp while I was at the beach. Remember to stretch it out to get this tough word. You can do it!

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 the word shrimp on the top and model reading the word.) First I see that the s and the h letters are sitting next to each other. That is my signal that the /sh/ sound will be in my word. I’m going to use a cover-up to get past the rest of the word. (Uncover and blend each letter after the sh). So we have /sh/ + /r/+/i/ +/m/+/p/. Now I’m going to blend the /sh/ with the /r/ so that I get /SHr/. Now I need the rest of the word, /i/ = /SHri/; now /m/ = /SHrim/; now lastly we have /p/ = /SHrimp/. Shrimp; that’s it! Now its your turn; everyone together. (Have children read the 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 with reading words with our new spelling sh = /sh/. Now we are going to read a book called The Crash in the Shed. This is the story of two friends, Jan and Tim. Tim wants to fish and Jan wants to swim. They are in a rush and try to get all their materials for the pond too fast. Let’s pair up and take turns reading The Crash in the Shed to find out what happens when they climb the ladder to get their poles and shells from the shelf. (Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads The Crash in the Shed aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.)

7. Say: That was such a great story. What happened after Jan and Tim tried to get their materials for the pond? Right! The cat was on the shelf and he knocked down all the shells and materials for the pond. That silly cat. What did the cat get though? Right! A shell. Before we finish up with our lesson about the way to spell /sh/; I want to see you solve some simple questions on this assessment worksheet. On this worksheet, we have some short little stories. You just have to pick out the words that use the spelling of sh and make the /sh/ sound. Circle the words you find with those sounds and try to read the sentence as you go. Reread and check your answers to see if they make sense with the rules. (Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.)

 

Resources:

Barrowclough, Lauren, Shelly the Shell says SHHH:   http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invent/barrowcloughel.html

 

Murray, G. (2006). The Crash in the Shed: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/bookindex.html

 

Assessment worksheet: http://www.funfonix.com/worksheets/book2_page29.php

 

 

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