Rationale:

                In order for children to be able to read they need to learn spellings that map word pronunciations. This lesson will help that by teaching the student the short vowel correspondence o = /o/. They will learn that o = /o/ says “ahhh” and they will spell and read words during a letter box lesson focusing on this correspondence. They will also read a decodable book focusing on o = /o/.

Materials:

• Picture of a child opening their mouth for a doctor

• Picture of a capital and lowercase letter “O”

• Letterboxes for modeling

• Letter tiles

Procedures:

• Say:        Today we are going to learn about a letter that all of you use every day, short o! [Point to the images of the lowercase and capital letter o].  The letter “o” makes the sound o-o-o-o-o-o (pronounced ahhhh). Now all of you have been to a doctor and has the doctor ever told you to open wide and say ahhh? That is the sound that the short o makes. So everyone open your mouths wide and say ‘ahhhhh’.

• Say:        I am going to show you how to find the /o/ in the word dog. I am going to say dog very slowly and stretch the word out. Listen out for the ‘ahhhhh’ while I say dog.

• Say:        Now how about we try a tongue tickler. [Presented on white board] “Oliver the octopus eats olives”. Everybody say it together. Now say it again and try and stretch out the ‘ahhh’ at the beginning of these words.

• Say:        Now let’s practice writing the lowercase letter ‘o’. [Give each student a piece of primary paper] To write a lower case letter ‘o’ start at the fence and curve down to the side walk and then curve back up to the fence and connect it. I want to see everyone’s ‘o’s so practice a few times for me.

• Call on different students to answer these questions: Do you hear/o/ in mop or bag?  Stack or stock? Hog or wake?

Reference:  

Picture: http://spectrummuminmalaysia.com/2011/07/11/goodbye-sore-throat-hello-handwriting/

“Say Ahhh!” by Caroline Rush