“Ow! My Toe!”

 Beginning Reading Design 

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Rachel Lee

 

Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the vowel correspondence ow= /ou/. 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 ow. They will learn a meaningful representation (person stumping their toe saying “ow!”), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence ow= /ou/.

 

Materials: 

• Graphic image of hurt toe

• cover-up critter

• whiteboard or smartboard 

• Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual 

• Elkonin boxes for each student

• letter manipulatives for each child

• magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: c, o, w, f, r, n, b, l, d, e, k

• list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: cow, frown, brow, rock, clown, drowned

• decodable text: The Clown Who Always Frowned (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fluency-Passage-for-vowel-digraphs-ou-and-ow-1638137)

• 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 o, like top, and today we are going to learn about the cluster ow and how the w is used with o to say /ou/. When I say /ou/ I think of someon stumping their toe and saying “ow!” in pain! [show graphic image].

2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /ou/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /ou/ in words, I hear /ou/ my cheeks tighten and my lips purse up as if I am going to kiss someone. [Make vocal gesture for/ou/.] I’ll show you first: how. I heard ow say /ou/ and I felt my mouth mae the motion I mentioned earlier [blow a kiss with around pursed lips]. There is a ow in how. Now I’m going to see if it’s in home. Hmm, I didn’t hear ow say its name and my cheeks didn’t tighten with pursed lips. Now you try. If you hear /ou/ say, “Ow! My toe!.” If you don’t hear /ou/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in cow, allow, pants, float, brown, lips? [Have children blow a kiss with their pursed lips when they feel /ou/ pronounced.] Ow!

3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /ou/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /ou/ is with a w after the o to tell us that it says /ou/. [Write ow on the board.]  What if I want to spell the word town? “I went out of town for the 4thof July.” The town I went to was Memphis, TN. To spell town in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /t//ow//n/. I need 3 boxes. I heard that /ou/ just before the /n/ so I’m going to put an ow in the 2nd box together because they work together to make the sound /ou/. The word starts with /t/, that’s easy; I need a t. Now all we need is the end sound /n/ at the end so we will put an n in the last box. Town.

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for cow. “One day I would like to milk a cow on a farm.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? What about silent ow working together, did you remember to have them share a 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 /ou/ and don’t forget o and w work together in the same box. Here’s the word: frown. “Turn that frown upside down and smile!” Frown. [Allow children to spell words.]  Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: f –r –ow–n and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: brow. My eye brow is brown, like my hair. [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 /ou/ in it before you spell it: rock; be careful when you climb on the rock. Did you need an ow? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear ow say /ou/. We spell it with our short vowel o by itself. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Did you remember to spell /k/ with a ck? Now let’s try 4 phonemes: clown. The clown was wearing shoes the size of a large box. Clown. One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: drowned; If the child was not wearing a lifejacket, he might have drowned. Drowned. Remember to stretch it out to get this tough word. 

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 clown on the top and model reading the word.]  First I see there’s an ow together; that’s my signal that it will say /ou/. There’s the cluster ow. It must say /ou/. 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.] /c//l/ = /cl/. Now I’m going to blend that with /ou/ = /clow/. Now all I need is the end, /n/ = /clown/. Clown; 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.]

6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /ou/: ow. Now we are going to read a story called The Clown Who Always Frowned. This is a story of Buttercup the clown, who is not very good at being a clown. He would always make children frown instead of smile.. until one day something changed! Let’s pair up and take turns reading The Clown Who Always Frowned to find out what the changes for Buttercup. [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 the book aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.] 

7. Say: That was a fun story. What happened to Buttercup? Right, he made balloon animals and finally made a great balloon for Bobby. What did he make for Bobby? Right, a crown.  Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /ou/ = ow, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have some words missing. Your job is to look in the box of word choices, and decide which ow word fits best to make sense of this very short story. First try reading all the words in the box, then choose the word that fits best in the space. Reread your answers to see if they make sense and see if they fit into the crossword. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]

 

Resources: 

https://bogglesworldesl.com/phonics/vowel_combination_ow.doc - Graphic

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fluency-Passage-for-vowel-digraphs-ou-and-ow-1638137 -Decodable Text

https://www.free-phonics-worksheets.com/phonics-worksheet-64.html - Worksheet

https://savnewton.wixsite.com/mywebsite/beginning-reading-design - Published Lesson Reference

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