I See a Bee
A Beginning Reading Lesson
By Lauren Dallas
Rationale:
This lesson teaches children about the long vowel correspondence ee = /E/. In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling “ee”. They will learn a meaningful representation (bee flying making “eeee” noise), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence ee = /E/.
Materials:
Cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: s, e, e, n, d, f, r, z, e, t, h, l, l, g, n, t; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: see, need, freeze, three, tell, green, street; decodable text: Lee and the Team, and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
1. Say: In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with e, like set, and today we are going to learn about long E and the letters ee together signal that is used to make E say its name, /E/. When I say /E/ I think of a little kid saying, “I see a bee!” [show graphic image].
2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /E/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /E/ in words, I hear ee say its name /E/ and my lips make stretch wide like a smile to say /E/. [Make vocal gesture for /E/.] I’ll show you first: feet. I heard ee say its name and I felt my lips stretch like a smile [point to stretched lips]. There is a long E in feet. Now I’m going to see if it’s in wet. Hmm, I didn’t hear E say its name and my lips didn’t stretch into a smile. Now you try. If you hear /E/ say, “I see a bee!” If you don’t hear /E/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in sweet, teeth, pants, green, nose, lips? [Have children point to their smile when they feel /E/ say its name.]
3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /E/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /E/ is with the letters ee which tells me that E says its name. [Write ee on the board.] When you see two ee’s together, you will always say their name /E/. What if I want to spell the word freeze? “I got a coat because I didn’t want to freeze.” Freeze means to be very, very cold in this sentence. To spell freeze in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /f//r//E//z/. I need 5 boxes. I heard that /E/ just before the /z/ so I’m going to put an ee in the 3rd box and the silent e signal outside the last box. The word starts with /f/, that’s easy; I need an f. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going to say it slowly, /f//r//E//z/. I think I heard /r/ so I’ll put an r right after the f. I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /f//r//E//z/.] The missing one is /z/ = z.
4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for see. “I want to see a monkey at the zoo.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress.] You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /E/. Here’s the word: need, I need to go to the store; need. [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: n – ee – d and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: three; I have three brothers. [Have volunteer 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 /E/ in it before you spell it: tell; I’m going to tell you a secret. Did you put two e’s together? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear E say its name. We spell it with our short vowel e. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Did you remember to spell /l/ with two l’s? Now let’s try 4 phonemes: green; we played on the green grass. One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: street; Be sure to look both ways before you cross the street.
5. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with keep on the top and model reading the word.] First, I see that there are two e’s in the middle of the word; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s the vowel e. It must say /E/. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] first we have k which says /k/. Now I’m going to blend that with /E/ = /kE/. Now all I need is the end, /p/ = /kEp/. Keep; that’s it. Now it’s your turn, everyone together. [Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.] k e e p
6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /E/: ee. Now we are going to read a book called Lee and the Team. This story is about a boy named Lee who leads a baseball team. His team is going to be late for their game, and Lee can’t do anything to make them get going… until someone shows up that gets them all running. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Lee and the Team to find why Lee’s team starts running. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Lee and the Team aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]
7. Say: That was a fun story. What made Lee’s team start running? Right, they were running from a bee! What was Lee’s team doing before the bee showed up? Right, sitting in the weeds and leaning on a tree. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /E/ = ee, I want to see how you can tell the difference between words with a long e sound, /E/, and words with a short e sound, /e/. On this worksheet, you will color words that have e says /E/ purple and words with e says /e/ red. First try reading all the words on the petals and listening for what sound you hear. You may quietly say the word to yourself to listen for /E/ or /e/. then, color the petal with the color that it says to use for that sound [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]
Resources:
https://thriveedservices.com/how-to-teach-long-e-words/
(1990) Lee and the Team. Sheila Cushman and Rona Kornblum: file:///Users/laurendallas/Downloads/Lee%20and%20the%20Team.pdf
worksheet: file:///Users/laurendallas/Downloads/LongeeeBuzzActivitySheetsFreebieWorkswithHoneybeesstory-1.pdf
