A Beginning Reading Lesson:
Grunt Like a Caveman, Uh, Uh, Uh!
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Rationale:
In this lesson, students will learn about the short vowel correspondence /u/=u. It’s necessary that students recognize the spellings of words that map out word pronunciations. This lesson will teach students to recognize, pronounce, spell, and read words that contain the correspondence /u/. The caveman saying “Uh” will teach them a meaningful representation, and a letterbox lesson will help them spell and read words containing the correspondence, as well as read a decodable book that is consistent with the /u/=u correspondence.
Materials:
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Image of the caveman with “U” next to it
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Cover up critters
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Plastic letter manipulatives for each student
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Letterboxes for students
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Letterboxes drawn on whiteboard or on smart board for teacher
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Magnetic or otherwise letters for teacher (u, i, a, t, b, r, m, b, d, c, k, l, s, h, n, t, d, s)
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Fuzz and the Buzz (decodable book) and
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These words printed on a poster or written on whiteboard for students to read: tub, rim, tab, duck, club, stub, hunt, dust
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Short U Color Puzzle (link at bottom of page)
Procedures:
1. Say: How many of you would like to become expert readers? Me too, but in order to become expert readers, we first need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We’ve learned the code for /a/ /e/ and /i/, like in apple, elephant, and igloo. Today we’re going to learn about short U and its sound. Short U sounds like “uhh,” so when we think of short U we can think of a caveman scratching his head and saying, “Uh, what did you say?” [show students the image of caveman and act out scratching your forehead and saying “Uhh”]
2. Say: Before we learn the spelling of /u/, we need to listen for it in words and see if we can hear it. When we listen for /u/ in words, we hear uhhh like a caveman, and our mouths are open like we’re confused. Our tongue lays flat in our mouths and our lips are open. [Model saying “uhhh” with lips parted] When we read words with /u/ in them, we need to listen for the “uhh” and see if our mouths are open and tongues are flat. There’s a short /u/ in under. Let’s say under together slowly uuuuu-nnnnn-dddddd-errrrr. Do you hear the /u/ in under? Do you think purple has short /u/? Let’s see. Puuurple. No, I don’t hear “uh” and my tongue doesn’t lie flat in my mouth like in uhh. Now, I want you to try and find short /u/ in some words. Remember, we want to listen for “uh.” Do we hear /u/ in pan, hut, mop, sun, run, hip, water, dunk, [Have students raise their hand when they hear words with the /u/ sound in them.]
3. Say: Okay, we’re also going to look at the spelling of short /u/ today. Let’s take out our letterboxes. Okay, I’ll spell “dunk.” Now, we hear “d-u-n-k”, and that’s four phonemes, so we know we’ll need four letter boxes. What do I think the first letter is? Say the world slowly if you can’t figure it out ddddd-uuuu, that first sound is /d/, what letter says /d/? D! That’s right, d says /d/ so I’m going to put a d in my first letterbox. Next I hear that /u/ sound like the caveman says, uhhhhh, so what letter is that? U! So I will put u in my second letter box. The next sound in the word hump after the letter u is nnnnn, that’s the letter n so I’ll put that in my third letterbox. Now, what’s the last sound in the word dunk? Ddd—uuuu—nnn—kkk, /k/ /k/ /k/ that’s the letter k! The last letterbox gets the letter k. Now we’ve spelled dunk!
4. Say: Now, you’re going to try spelling some words in letter boxes. Our first word is “run”. I go on a run every morning. We need three boxes for this word. What do you think should go in the first box? [Correct their answers if incorrect, respond if they have questions or if their answers are correct.] Right, we know /r/ says r, so that goes in the first box. What comes next? Remember our caveman. That’s right, u comes next. Go ahead and put the u in the next box. What letter says “nnn”? That’s right! “n!” N goes in the last box. Excellent work. [Walk around to check spellings]
Continue with this process through the 3 and 4 phoneme words pug, rim, tab, duck, hunt, bump, sunk, rust
5. Say: Now we’re going to do some reading. We’re going to read the words we just spelled in our letter boxes. Keep in mind our caveman that says “uhhhh” as we read these words. [Model reading by decoding with a cover up critter on the board with the first word, decode and then blend the sounds together.] Okay, so now we all know what we’re going to do. Let’s read all these words out loud together. [Point to each word and have the students read them out loud, then call on individual students to try reading a word from the list on their own.]
6. Say: Im so proud of how hard you’ve all been working! Now that we’ve worked on our spellings, we’re going to read a new book called Fuzz and the Buzz. This book is about a bear cub named Fuzz. Fuzz runs away from home and runs into a tree full of bees. Do you think the bees are going to sting Fuzz? Let’s see what happens to Fuzz. [Have students pair up and read the book out loud by alternating pages while the teacher walks around the room and monitors progress as well as providing scaffolding if necessary. After everyone is finished, the class will reread the story out loud with the teacher and take breaks between pages to talk about what happened.]
7. Wow, Fuzz sure got into a whole lot of trouble, didn’t he? First, the bees bother him, and then when he runs away from them, he gets all muddy in the puddle! Now we’re going to work on a worksheet. I want you to look at each pair of words and decide which one has the short u sound uhhhh like the caveman makes. Circle that word and then write it on the line below. Work on this independently and then when you’re finished come bring me your worksheet so I can look it over. [Check each worksheet for accuracy and give further instruction as needed, identify students who are struggling and may need extra practice]
Resources:
Adapted from Belle Brennan’s, Grunt Like a Caveman with U
http://isabellebrennan.wixsite.com/keylessonsinreading/beginning-reading
Adapted from Addie Herrlin’s, Uh I Understand!
http://aherrlin.wix.com/lessondesigns#!beginning-reading-design/c9lc
Fuzz and the Buzz. Educational Insights, 1990. Phonics Readers, Short U Book 9.
http://www.amazon.com/Fuzz-Buzz-Phonics-Readers-Vowels/dp/0886798590
Short U Worksheet:
http://www.schoolexpress.com/fws/ws/phonics/vowels/shortu03.pdf
