Beginning Reading Design:
“Uhhh, What’s up doc?”

Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence u = /u/. 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 letter u. They will learn a meaningful representation by saying “Uhhh, what’s up doc?” to emphasize the /u/ sound, they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence u =/u/.

 

Materials:

• Picture of Bugs Bunny holding a sign and looking confused

• Cover up critter

• Letter tiles for each child (letters: up, stunk, punt, chug, tub, mud, stuck)

• Letterbox sets for each child

• List of spelling words on poster to read: plug, sit, stunk, tub, sat, chug, suck, mud

• Decodable text: The Bug in the Jug wants a Hug (2009)

• Assessment worksheets- markers, colored pencils, and crayons, pencils

 

Procedures:

1. Say: “To become a great reader, we must learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Who in here is excited to come up with a code that will help us figure out how to read and spell different words? I know I am excited! Today we are going to learn about short U. When I say /u/ I think of Bugs Bunny scratching his head in confusion because I am not sure of the answer. When that happens, we say “/u/.” [I will show the picture of Bugs Bunny scratching his head and ask the students to say the sound /u/.]

2. Say: “Before we learn about the spelling of /u/, we need to listen and hear the sounds /u/ in words. When we say /u/ our mouths are open, our tongue sits at the bottom of our mouths, and we are making the sound from the back of our throats [make a vocal gesture for /u/]. I’ll show you first: fun in the sun. I heard /u/ like I heard it in “uhhh, what’s up doc?”  I felt my mouth open, and my tongue flatten on the bottom of my mouth. There is a short u in fun and sun! Let’s see if we hear a short u in stunk, did you hear it? If you hear /u/ in these next few words that I will read aloud, I want you to pretend to hop like Bugs Bunny. Do you hear /u/ in tuck or sick? Tub or open? Crush or like? Hug or kiss? Club or drink? Sit or sunk?

3. Say: “Now, how about we start using the code to learn how to read! Let’s learn to spell words that sound like our friend Bugs the Bunny. What if I want to spell the word Bugs? First, I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word Bugs, so I stretch it out and count. Ready? /b/u/g/s/. I need four boxes. I heard the sound of /u/ just before the /g/ so I am going to put a u in the second box. The word starts with /b/, so I need to place a ‘b’ in the first box right in front of the ‘u’. I heard /u/ sound right before the /g/ so I am going to put a ‘g’ in the third box right after ‘u’. I hear a ‘s’ sound, like a hissing snake, right after the ‘g’ sound, so I will place that in the last box. I am done! [point to letters in the boxes when stretching out the word]. Now, let’s read this word together. /b/u/g/s/, bugs!

4. Say: “Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out with two boxes. Bugs Bunny went ‘up’ into the air; up. What should go in the first box? What goes into the second box? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the classroom. [walk around to observe progress]. You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box and then listen for the /u/. Bugs the Bunny ‘stunk’ after the race.; stunk. [Allow children to spell the word and check to see if they put the digraph ck in the same box. Model on the board if needed; then have the students spell punt, chug, tub, mud, stuck.]

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 the poster board with the word ‘plug’ on the top and model reading the word.] This is how I would know how to read the word without the letterboxes. I start by covering up every letter except the /u/ in the middle. We learned today that /u/ makes the same sound as “uhhhh, what’s up doc?” It makes me want to hop like Bugs and scratch my head in confusion like Bugs did in his picture. Everyone scratch your head and hop up and down and say, uhhhhhh. Next, I know that the word starts with the letter ‘p’ which makes the /p/ sound. After the /p/ sound, I see the letter /l/ and I know this makes the /l/ sound. So now I have /p/l/u/. Finally, after the /u/ sound, I see the last letter ‘g’ which I know makes the /g/ sound which is at the end of the word. Now I have /p/-/l/-/u/-g/. [Show words sit, stunk, tub, sat, chug, suck, mud, rub, frutch (pseudoword) on the poster board. Have the children read the words in unison. Afterword’s, call on individual students to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]

6. Say: “Since everyone has done such an excellent job at reading words with our new spelling /u/: u, now we are going to read a book called “The Bug in the Jug wants a Hug.” One day, a bug named Bell, was exploring the outside of the jar and fell in the jug. Hi friends try to help him out of the jar so he can give a hug to his friend. Let’s read and see if Bell gets out of the Jug and how his friends help him! [Have the children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages, while you walk around the room monitoring the progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads, “The Bug in the Jug wants a Hug,” altogether, and stop between page turns to discuss the plot and to see if they heard any short u sounds.

7. Assessment: Say: “On this worksheet you will pair up with a partner and color the pictures that have the short /u/ sound, like our friend Bugs has in his name! Let’s see if there is a picture in the first row that has the /u/ sound. [Go through the first row and sound out each word with the class, then explain why the second picture is the only one in the column that works with what we have learned today. Have the students pair up after this for fifteen minutes and then discuss the rest of the worksheet.]

 

References:

Eason, Samantha. Uhhhh, what?

https://samanthaeason1999.wixsite.com/mysite/beginning-reading-design

 

Johnson, Jacquelyn. Uhhhh, I’m confused!
https://sites.google.com/site/jjreadinglesson/home/uhhh-i-m-confused

 

https://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/

 

Cleary, Brian. The Bug in the Jug wants a Hug. LearnerClassroom, 2009.

https://www.amazon.com/Bug-Wants-Sounds-Like-Reading/dp/0761342028

 

Assessment Worksheet:

https://www.mathworksheets4kids.com/language-arts/short-u/read-color.pdf