Hit the Woah with O!
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By: Kayla McCary
Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence oa= /O/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson, students will learn to spell, recognize, and read words containing the spelling of oa. They will learn a memorable representation (demonstration of girl hitting the woah), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence oa= /O/.
Materials: Gif of little girl hitting the woah; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin letterboxes for each student; cover-up critter; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letter for teacher: a, c, f, g, k, h, l, o, p, t, s; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: oak, oat, soap, goat, coat, float, toast, coach; decodable text The Smoke Scare and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
1. Say: In order to become excellent readers, we need to learn the code that helps us pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowels with the letter o, like pop, and today we are going to learn long O and the silent a that follows to make O say its name, /O/. When I say /O/, I think of someone doing the dance move like the woah [show gif image]. Now let’s look at the spelling of /O/ that we are going to learn today.
2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /O/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen /O/ in words, I hear o say its name /O/ and my mouth makes the shape of a little o like this. [Make vocal gestures when showing /O/]. I’ll show you first: soap. I heard o say its name and I felt my mouth make a little o [make a circle motion around pursed lips]. There is a long O in soap. Now I'm going to see if it’s in sock. Huh, I didn't hear o say its name and my mouth didn’t make a little circle. Now you try! If you hear /O/, do a dance move by doing the dance move the woah. If I don’t hear /O/ say “That’s not right.” Is it in mop, poke, road, dot, peak, toad? [Have children make a circle motion around their pursed lips when they feel /O/ say its name.]
3. Now let’s look at the spelling of /O/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /O/ is with the o with an a that follows which tells me to say O’s name. [Wite oa on the board.] When we see this, we know there is going to be a long vowel, which is a long way of saying /O/. What if I want to spell the word cloak? “A tall man who wore a long red cloak seemed to be the king of the castle.” A cloak is a long, sleeveless undergarment that was commonly worn in the medieval times. To spell cloak in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /c//l//O//a//k/. I need 5 boxes. I heard that /O/ just before the /a/ so I’m going to put an o in the 3rd box. The word starts with /c/, which sounds like a hard /c/; I need a c. Now it gets a little tricky here so I am going to say this slowly, /c//l//O//a//k/. I know I heard /l/ so I’ll put a l right after the c. Now it’s time to place my /O/ in the 3rd box! Let’s see… I have two letters left. We’ve been learning about oa so I know I need an a in the fourth box. I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /c//l//O//a//k/.] The missing one is /k/.
Now I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with soak on the top and model reading the word.] I’m going to start with oa; that part says /O/. Now I’m going to put the beginning letters with it: s-oa, /sO/. Now I’ll put that chunk together with the last sound, /sOa-k/. Oh, soak, like “My mom soaks her potatoes on the stove.”
4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in the letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with three boxes for oak. An oak is a big, beautiful tree, “It was a beautiful, sunny day so we ate lunch underneath the large oak tree.” As you spell the word, I am going to check your spelling as I walk around the room. [Observe progress]. You’ll need four letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound to spell in the first box. Then listen for /O/ and don’t forget that an a could follow the letter o. Here’s the word: goat, “My favorite farm animal is a goat, they’re adorable!” [Allow children to spell the remaining words, giving sentences for each word: oat, soap, coat, float, toast, coach.]
5. Say: Now I am going to ask you to read the words you’ve spelled. [Show the words oak, oat, soap, goat, coat, float, toast, coach, the extra words soak and lost, and the pseudoword moake. 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 an amazing job reading words with our new spelling /O/: oa. Now we are going to read a book called The Smoke Scare. This is a story of a boy named Ben who is not feeling too good. When he goes to look for his coat, he falls asleep on the boat! Things are not turning out the way Ben wanted them to. Can things get any worse? Let’s pair up and take turns reading The Smoke Scare to find out what happens to Ben. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while the teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads The Smoke Scare chorally, stopping between page turns to discuss the story.]
7. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /O/ = oa, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have some words missing. I would like you to look at the box of word choices and decide which oa word fits best to make sense of this short story. First try reading all the words in the box, then choose the word that fits best in the space. Reread your answers to see if they make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
Resources:
BOO! I see You and OO! By Mya Perkins