BEGINNING READING DESIGN

Say: “In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today we are going to learn about the short vowel /u/ that is spelled with the letter u. When I say /u/, I think of a confused student answering a question by saying “ummm I don’t know.”

Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /u/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /u/ in words, I hear u say “uhh” and my mouth opens up with my tongue near the bottom of my mouth and I push air out with an uh sound. (make vocal gesture for /u/). I’ll show you first: tub. I heard u say uh and delt my mouth open up (open mouth in a neutral shape). There is a short u in tub. Now I am going to see if it’s in man. Hmm, I didn’t hear u say uh and and my mouth didn’t open up to make the uh sound. Now you try. If you hear /u/ say, “umm I don’t know.” If you don’t hear u say /u/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in dog, mud, song, sit? (Have students put tongue in the top of their mouth to feel how their mouth is open when saying /u/.)

Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /u/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /u/ is with the letter u and it can be surrounded by either vowels or consonants. (Write the letter u on the board). What if I want to spell the word jump? “We should all jump at the same time.” Jump is a verb in this sentence. To spell jump in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes are in this word, so I stretch it out and count /j/,/u/,/m/,/p/. I need four letterboxes. I heard the /u/ just before the /m/, so I am going to put a u in the second box and a m in the third. The word starts with /j/, so I know I need a j in the first box. And what’s that ending sound? /p/, yes! So, I need a p in the last letterbox. Let’s check to see if we spelled it write. Say it slowly: /j/ /u/ /m/ /p/. I think we got it right! |j| |u| |m| |p|

Say: Now I want us to spell some words using letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for up. “The man walked up the stairs.” What should go in the box first? (respond to the student’s answers) What about the second box? I will check your spelling as I walk around. (walk around observing and checking progress) You will need three letterboxes for this next word. I want you to listen for the beginning sound that will go in the first box, and then listen for the /u/ sound. This next word is sun, The sun is shining bright today; sun. (allow students time to spell the word.) Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board; s-u-n and see if you spelled it the same way. Let’s try another word with three boxes: luck; It was just her luck that she made it to school on time. (Have a student volunteer to 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 this word has /u/ in it before you spell it: ran; The dog ran to his owner. Did you hear /u/? You’re right we didn’t hear /u/ we heard short vowel /a/ that we learned a few weeks ago. We spell it with our short vowel a, not using /u/= u. Now let’s try 4 boxes: stuck; The car was stuck in the mud. Did you remember to spell /k/ with a ck? One more and we’ll be done with spelling. This time we’re going to use five boxes!  The word is dumps; The man dumps all of his trash in the big pile. Remember we are using short vowel /u/ and not long vowel /U/.

Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you have spelled, but first I’ll show you how to read a tough word. (Display poster with the word dumps and model reading the word.) First off, I see that there is no e at the end of the word; that is my signal this vowel does not say its name. This word has the short vowel u and is surrounded by consonants, so it must say /u/. I am going to use a cover up critter to get the first part. (Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel then blend them with the vowel) d=/d/, now add the vowel u=/u/, /du/. Next let’s add the end /m/ /p/ /s/ =/mps/; /dumps/. Dumps that’s right! Now it’s your turn, everyone read together. (Have children read words in unison. Call on individuals as well, giving each student a turn.)

Say: You have done a great job with reading words with our new spelling for /u/ using u. Now we are going to read a book called “Tut’s Nut Shop.” This story is about a boy named tut and his nut shop. One day he gets sick and cannot work. What will he do? Let’s all pair up and take turns reading “Tut’s Nut Shop” to find out. (Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks around monitoring progress. After each pair reads the book, the class rereads “Tut’s Nut Shop,” stopping between each page to discuss the plot.)

Wasn’t that a good story? That’s right, his friends helped him and worked at his nut shop! Wasn’t that so nice of his friends? Before we finish up this lesson about one way to spell /u/ using the letter u, I want to do one more thing. Let’s do this worksheet on short vowel u words. Your job is to read the sentence and choose one of the short u word options underneath that makes the most sense. I want you to read all of the options, and then make a decision. After making a choice, reread your sentence to double check it makes sense. (Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.)