Rationale: This lesson is to teach children about the short vowel correspondence o= /o/. For a child to learn how to read, the child must learn how to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. Children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words that contain the vowel o. Throughout this lesson, the students will learn a meaningful representation for the vowel o (a yawning angel saying /o/), spell words containing the spelling, o, in a Letterbox lesson, read words containing o, and finishing with reading a decodable book, focusing on the correspondence o= /o/. 

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Materials: We will all need:

1. Poster with the image of the yawning angel

2. Cover-up Critter

3. Whiteboard

4. Elkonin boxes for each student

5. Letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic/smartboard letters for the teacher: r, o, c, k, s, i, n, g, l, b, t, d, p, m, a, and j.

6. Poster Board with the word: Stomp                 

7. List of spelling words on poster/whiteboard: rock, sing, long, stop, blot, map, dop, gold, and cop.

8. Decodable Book: Doc in the Fog

9. Assessment Worksheet: Pictures with objects (focused on o= /o/)

10. Colored Pencils for assessment worksheets

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Procedures:

1. Say to students: “If we want to become expert readers, we must learn more about the code which tells us how to pronounce words and letters. All letters in the alphabet have their own unique sounds and make us move our mouths, each in a unique way. Today, we will be learning about the letter o and the short vowel sounds it makes (which is /o/). When I say /o/, I think of how we yawn! “Ohhh! Ohhh!” Do you make the /o/ short vowel sound when you yawn? Everyone try yawning right now!” (Model yawning with an open and relaxed mouth and have students try yawning with me).

2. Say: “Before we learn more details about the spelling of /o/, we are going to listen if we can recognize the sound in some words. When I listen for /o/ in words, I hear o making a yawning sound /o/ and my mouth is as open and relaxed as it can be, just how our mouth feels when we yawn! (Demonstrate vocal gesture for /o/). When I say “hot”,I hear the /o/ sound and felt my mouth open up and relax, like it does when we yawn. Now, let’s listen to hear for the /o/ sound in another word. Do we hear the /o/ sound in “cat”? I did not hear the sound /o/ in cat, did you? Also, my mouth did not relax into a yawning, open mouth position when I said the word “cat”, so, no there is no /o/ in “cat”. Now, you will have an opportunity to try it for yourself! When you hear the /o/ sound in a word, make a stretching moment like you are yawning. Do you hear it in mom, bed, sock, in, dog, dig, and top?”

3. Say: “Now, we are going to practice using /o/ in words by looking at a tongue tickler. First, I am going to give you a story about a little boy named Oliver! He had to go to the doctor to have something done in October. It hurt, so his dad, Oscar, gave him a present for being so brave. His present was an octopus! Here’s our tongue tickler: “Oliver had an operation in October, and Oscar gave him an octopus”. Let’s say it all together three times (I will lead it the first two times and for the third time, I will let the students practice alone). Good Job! Next, we are going to stretch out the /o/ sound in each word as we say it: “Ooooooliver had an oooooperation in Oooooctober and Ooooscar gave him an oooooctopus”. Great job! Now, we will split off /o/ from the rest of the word: “/o/liver had an /o/peration in /o/ctober and /o/scar gave him an /o/ctopus”. Awesome job!

4. Say: “We will next focus on the spelling of /o/ which we will learn about today. What if we wanted to spell the word, “stop”? An example in a sentence is: “The police man told them to stop” (Show hand motion of “STOP”). To spell stop in letterboxes, we first need to know how many phonemes are in the word, so I will stretch it out and count: /s//t//o//p/. I counted four separate phonemes and need four boxes for the four phonemes. I heard the /o/ after the /s/ and /t/ so I will put the /o/ sound, or the o letter manipulative in the 3rd box. The word starts with an s, so now, I know I need to start the word with an /s/. Now, it is getting a little trickier, so I am going to say it slowly, /s//t//o//p/. I think I heard a /t/ so I will put that after the /s/. Now, I have just the last letter of the word and I hear a /p/ at the end of the word, so I put a p letter manipulative at the end of the word (after the o letter manipulative) and now, I have spelled stop!”

5. Say: “Now, it is your turn to spell some words in letterboxes. We will start out with more simple words with two boxes representing two phonemes. (pass out letter manipulatives and boxes to each student). The first word you will spell is “on”. An example of this in a sentence example is, “My uncle was on TV”. What should go in the first box? What about the second box? I will walk around the classroom to check your spellings (walk around and observe students’ progress). The o letter manipulative should go in the first box and the n letter manipulative should go in the second box. For our next word, you will need three boxes for the three phonemes. The word is “mop”. An example sentence is, “My dad made me mop the house”. First, we will need to listen for the beginning sound and then, also listen for /o/. (give children time to spell their word and walk around to check progress of students). Let’s check and see if you spelled the word correctly! Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: m-o-p. See if you spelled your word the same way. Try another with three boxes: “job”. An example of this word in a sentence: “You need to apply for the job”. (Have a volunteer spell it in the letterbox in front of the classroom on the board, so the children can check if they spelled their word correctly). Repeat these steps for each new word: rock (3- digraph), sing (3- digraph, review word), long (3- digraph), blot (4- consonant cluster), stop (4- consonant cluster), map (3-review word), and cop (3). The letter manipulatives I will need for myself and my students: r, o, c, k, s, i, n, g, l, b, t, d, p, m, a, and j.

6. Say: “We are now going to practice reading the words we have just spelled in our letterboxes. First, I will show you how to read a difficult word on the board. (Display poster board with the word “Stomp”and model reading the word). I first recognize there is an /o/ in the middle of my word as the vowel. This reminds me that my mouth will make a sound /o/ and will relax into a yawning type shape! I will use a cover-up critter to show how to find the first part before the osound (uncover and blend before the vowel). /s//t/= /st/. Next, I will blend that with the /o/ to get= /sto/. Now, all we have left is the end, /m/ and /p/, which will give us /stomp/. Now, it is your turn to read the words we have spelled, plus some extra words!” (Have children read words in unison, and then call on individuals to read one word on list until everyone has had a turn).

   1. Reading Words: rock, sing, stop, long, blot, map, dop, gold, and cop.

7. Say: “You have all done such a great job reading our words with our new spelling for o= /o/. We are now going to read a decodable book called Doc in the Fog, which will give us an opportunity to practice o= /o/. This is a story about a wizard named Doc. He wears a big wizard hat! Doc loves to use his wand to change objects into other objects. However, is that a good thing? Let’s continue reading to see what he changes next and if it’s for the best! (booktalk for class). Now, let’s pair up and take turns reading Doc in the Fog, to learn more about what happens throughout the story! (Children will pair up and take turns reading one page of the story. Teacher will walk around and monitor the progress of her students. After the individuals finish reading the book in pairs, the class will read Doc in the Fogaloud all together, and will stop between each page to discuss the plot of the book).

8. Say: “Everyone did such an awesome job reading our book, Doc in the Fog! What were some of your favorite spells? (ask this to the class). What happened when Doc tapped the fog? (ask class). Yes, he disappeared! Before we complete our lesson on o=/o/, we are going to have one last practice opportunity! (Pass out worksheet of pictures and crayons). You will all look at the picture page and color in the pictures that have the /o/ sound in the word! Work on your own on this worksheet”.

9. Assessment of my students: I will assess my students' progress while they complete the coloring of the pictures. I will call up students one at a time to check their progress, while reading Doc in the Fog, by testing their learning of the correspondence o=/o/ throughout our lesson. I will use a running record to assess their individual improvement. 

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Resources:

Kirkpatrick, Emma (2018): Beginning Reading Design: Aaaaa cried the Baby 

https://emk0029.wixsite.com/mysite/beginning-reading

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Reading Genie Website

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/

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Worksheet for Assessment:

https://www.abcteach.com/documents/short-o-beginning-sounds-i-abcteachcom-23364

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