i = /i/

Rationale: This lesson teaches children the short vowel correspondence i=/i/. In order to be able to read, the students must learn to recognize words from their spellings. In this lesson, children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the short vowel i. Students will learn the meaningful representation: saying /i/ like in sticky, icky syrup. They will spell and read words that contain this sound, complete a letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence i=/i/.

Materials:

1. Image of syrup being poured onto pancakes

2. Whiteboard

3. Expo Markers

4. Letterboxes for each student

5. Letter tiles for each student and magnetic letters for teacher: i, s, f, a,t, h, p, c, r, b, w, d, m

6. Poster board with the words for the children to spell: is, fit, hip, hat, shift, crib, witch, fid

7. Decodable text: Liz is Six

8. Practice Worksheet

9. Assessment sentence written on piece of paper: Liz caught the ball with her new mitt when Pig hit it!

Procedures:

1. Say: “We have to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words if we want to get better at reading. Today we are going to learn short i. When I think of /i/, I think of sticky, icky syrup that we put on our pancakes or waffles.”

2. Say: “We are going to listen for the sound /i/ in some words. When I say /i/, my mouth widens like it does when I am going to smile (make vocal gesture for /i/). There is a short i in sit. Is it in the word run? I didn’t hear the /i/ sound and my mouth did not widen. It’s your turn now! When you hear the /i/ sound in a word, pretend like you have sticky, icky, syrup on your hands. Is it in: lake, bridge, or dog?

3. Say: “Let's practice with a tickler tale. It all started when Izzy wanted pancakes for breakfast. Her mom made her some but told her to be extra careful with the syrup. She got the syrup out of the cabinet and started pouring it on her pancakes when her brother came and started tickling her. She spilled the syrup all over them. Now, Izzy and Jim are covered in sticky, icky syrup.

4. Say: “One way to spell /i/ is with the letter i (write i on the board.) What if I wanted to spell the word him? "He shared his toy, so I like him." To spell him in letterboxes, I need to know how many phonemes, or sounds, it has. To do this, I need to stretch the word out and count what I hear. I hear: /h/ /i/ /m/. How many sounds did you hear? That's right! I heard three sounds, so we need three boxes. (project letters on the board). I heard /i/ before the /m/ so I am going to put the i in the second box. The word starts with /h/, so I need to put h in the first box. The next sound I hear is /m/ so I need to put this in the third/last box. Now let's sound out each letter in the boxes and blend them together to see if we spelled it correctly: /h/ /i/ /m/, him!  (point to each letter in boxes when stretching out and blending the word.)”

5. Say: “Now I am going to have you spell words in letterboxes. You'll start with two boxes for is, "Pete the cat is wearing red shoes." What should go in the first box? (respond to students' answers.) What goes in the second box? I am going around to check your spelling (check progress.) You'll need three boxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first letterbox. Then listen for /i/. The word is fit. "I need to try these pants on to see if they fit." (give time for students to spell words). Time to check. Watch how I spell it in letterboxes on the board. F-i-t: see if your word matches mine. Watch how I spell hip in my letterboxes: h-i-p. Next word: listen to see if this word has /i/ in it before you spell it: lunch. I eat sandwiches for lunch. Did you hear the sticky, icky /i/? (Pick a student to spell lunch on the board). (Put another letter box out. The next word is shift. "We go to lunch during the first shift of the day. Shift.” Be careful with the word; it begins in sh because we use sh to make one sound before or after a short vowel. (give time). Now let's check our work.” Finish all words.

6. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you've spelled but first I want to show you how I would read a word. (Display poster with chat on the top and model reading the word.) First, I see there is a single i in the middle; that is my signal that the vowel is harder to hear and say /i/. I am going to use a cover up to read the first part. (uncover and blend sequentially before vowel, then blend with bowel.) sh=/sh/. Now I am going to blend that with i=/shi/ Now all I need is the end /f/ /t/= /shift/. Shift. That's it! Now it's your turn, everyone together. (Have students read in unison. After, call on students to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn)

7. Say: “You have done a great job learning words with your new spelling i=/i/. Now we are going to read a book called Liz is Six. Liz is six and gets a mitt for her birthday. The pig hits a ball and Liz catches it in her mitt. Liz goes up to bat and hits the ball. Will the pig catch her ball?” Children take turns reading with a partner and teacher goes around to monitor progress. Then, the class rereads the story together and stops between each page and talks about the plot!

8. Say: “That was such a fun story! Did you predict the ending?” (I will then call students individually to my desk to read a couple of pages from the book to me while I make notes of their miscues. The other students will work on a worksheet individually practicing identifying words with the i=/i/ correspondence. Students will color in the shapes two different colors depending on whether or not the word within the shape has short i.)

9. Now, have students come to your desk individually while completing the practice worksheet. Have them read the assessment sentence and ask them what the word mitt means. Have students tell you this answer as an assessment of their progress. Next, ask what hit means.

Resources:

Bruce Murray, The Reading Genie

 

Educational Insights Decodable Books. Lix is Six.

 

Practice worksheet

 

Cora Blue: Getting Icky, Sticky with i

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