Rationale: In this lesson, students will learn the short vowel i = /i/. Children will need to be able to recognize the phoneme that corresponds with i in order to be able to read at the beginning reading level. In this lesson, children will learn to spell, recognize, and read words containing the i = /i/. They will learn a meaningful representation (the icky sticky hands ice cream leaves), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence i = /i/.
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Materials: Meaningful representation of sticky ice cream, cover-up critter, individual Letterbox boxes for the student and for the teacher to model with, individual letter tiles for the student to use to spell the words, a whiteboard or smartboard to model with, word list to read: it, pig, lip, dig, bite, drink, decodable text: Slip and Spin, and assessment worksheet.
Procedures:
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Say: In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to
pronounce words. We are going to work on pronouncing every phoneme so that we will be able to read all the words in the text. Today we are going to start with a sound you have probably heard, i = /i/. When I think of this sound I think of the icky sticky hands a dripping ice cream cone leaves. Show the hand gesture and graphic while stretching out the /i/ sound. Now let’s do it together: /iiiiiiiii/ while stretching your hands apart.
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Say: Before we learn the spelling of /i/, we need to listen for it in some words. When you say /i/ you can see that our mouth stays open but our tongue stays low. Try it with me /i/./i/./i/.. [Make vocal gesture of /i/]. Let me show you first: chill. I heard it!!! Lets try making the hand gestures now when we hear /i/ in a word.. Now, I'm going to see if it is in swiiim. [Do hand gestures while vocalizing]. Ooo yes I heard the /i/.. Now it's your turn! I'm going to say some words and you say icky sticky with the hand gesture if it has the /i/ and if doesn't shake your head and say no. Is it in: blow, thrill, rim, drink, blue, pink? Show me your icky sticky hands if you hear it in witch.
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Now let's look at the spelling of /i/ that we'll learn today. We spell the sound /i/ using the lowercase letter i. We are going to practice spelling words that have /i/ in them using our Letterboxes. I am going to do a word first and then you get to try! First, what if I want to spell the word pig? “The pig on the farm loves to lay in the mud.” To spell pig with letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes are in the word, pig so I stretch it out and count: /p/ /i/ /g/. I need three boxes for this word. I heard the /i/ just after the p and before the g so I am going to put the i in the second letterbox. Pig starts with a what? A /p/ that's right, so the p will go in the first letterbox and the g will go in the third and final box.
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Say: Now I am going to have you spell some words with the letterboxes like I just did! You'll start out easy with two boxes for it. “Don't mess with my stuffed animal, I love it!” What should go in the first box? [Respond to the child’s answer]. What goes in the second box? Yes, g good job. Okay now you will need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning letter and the /i/. Here's the word: lip, “I got hit by a baseball on my lip, lip” [Allow children to spell the word]. Let’s see how you did - Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: l – i – p and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: dig; “My dog loves to dig in the backyard, dig” [ Have a student come up and demonstrate in front of the class for students to check their work. Then repeat this step for each new word]. Next word, listen to see if the word as /i/ in it before you spell it: bite; “Be careful, sometimes my cat likes to bite, bite.” Did you hear the icky sticky /i/? Why not? Right, this i says its name so it is a long vowel, we are looking for the short vowel /i/ [Remind with hand gesture and mouth movement & allow a volunteer to model on the board]. Now let's try 4 phonemes: skin; “When the wind blew, i got chill bumps on my skin, skin.” One more then we are done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: drink; “I would love some milk to drink with my lunch today, drink.” Remember to think of icky sticky hand gestures to spell this one out.
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Say: Now I am going to let you read the words we just spelled, but first ill show you how to read through a tough word. [Show the word drink on the board and model reading the word]. First I see the vowel i so i'll start with that, then I see that there is no silent e at the end so i must say /i/ like our icky stick ice cream cone. 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.] /d//r/ = /d/ + /r/ = /dr/. Now I’m going to blend that with /i/ = /dri/. Now all I need is the end, /n/ + /k/ = /drink/. drink; 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.]. Throw in some pseudowords like zim and bing to challenge the students and see if they learned the correspondence.
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Say: You've done an excellent job reading words with our spellings for /i/. Now we are going to read the book called Slip and Spin. Tim’s got a new pet and he’s home, and Elf the cat is curious. What is it? Oh no it’s slippery, Elf better be careful! Lets pair up and take turns reading Slip and Spin to see what happens. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while the teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Slip and Spin aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot and ask questions]. Remind the class to pay special attention to our icky sticky letter i!
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Say: That was such a fun story! What happened with Elf and Slim? Yep Slim slipped and spun. Before we finish up on our lesson of i = /i/ lets see what you can remember and do some practice. Here is a worksheet, use what we learned about the icky sticky i to answer these questions. On this worksheet, you will find some images and words. It is your job to circle the image/word that contains the icky stick /i/. You will also read the pairs of words at the bottom of the sheet and pick which word uses the icky sticky /i/ we talked about. [After they have completed assessment, collect worksheets to evaluate the child's progress].
Resources:
Melanie Abbott, Ice Cream is Icky Sticky :
https://melzers97.wixsite.com/ctrd/beginning-reading
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Decodable Book:
Murray, Geri and Bruce. (2019) Lad and His Pals; Slip and Spin.
Assessment worksheet:
https://www.easyteacherworksheets.com/pages/pdf/languagearts/phonics/shortvowels/35.html
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