Say Cheeeese!

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 (smiling as wide as possible saying “Cheese!”), 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/.

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Materials: Graphic image of smiling face; cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin letterboxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: e, e, t, p, d, r, m, q, u, n, w, h, l, c, s, p, k; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: tee, peek, tree, deer, meet, queen, wheel, cheek, screen, sleep, decodable text “Lee Meets the Queen,” and assessment worksheet.

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Procedure:

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 pet, and today we are going to learn about long E words with two E’s to make our long E sound, /E/. When I say /E/ I think of saying “Cheese!” while smiling as big as I possibly can [show graphic image]. Now let’s look at the spelling of /E/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /E/ is with the letters ee that tell me to say E’s name. [Write ee on the board.]  These two E’s put together show us we are spelling and reading with long E.

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 e say its name /E/ and my mouth opens side to side in a smile to make the sound /E/. [Make vocal gesture for /E/.] I’ll show you first: sheep. I heard e say its name and I felt my mouth open side to side in a smile to make the sound /E/ [smile while saying “eeee”]. There is a long E in sheep. Now I’m going to see if it’s in pat. Hmm, I didn’t hear e say its name and my mouth was open like a scream. Now you try. If you hear /E/ say, “Cheeeeeese.” If you don’t hear /E/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in feet, rain, pants, tree, deer, lips? [Have children smile from side to side as much as they can to make the E sound so they feel /E/ say its name.]

3. What if I want to spell the word cheer? “I cheer for my team at the football game.” Cheer means to encourage or root for my favorite team in this sentence. To spell cheer in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /ch//E//r/. I need 3 boxes. I heard that /E/ just before the /r/ so I’m going to put ee in the 2nd. The word starts with /ch/, that’s easy; I need a c and an h. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going to say it slowly, /ch//E//r/. I think I heard /E/ so I’ll put our ee right after the ch. I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /ch//E//r/.] The missing one is /r/.

Now I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with street on the top and model reading the word.]  I’m going to start with the ee; that part says /E/. Now I’m going to put the beginning letters with it: s-t-r-ee, /strE/. Now I’ll put that chunk together with the last sound, /strE-t/. Oh, street, like “I drive my car down the street.”

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for tee. A tee is a stand that someone can use to hit a ball off of, “I hit the baseball off of a tee.” What about the two e’s, did you remember both of them? 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 to spell in the first box. Then listen for /E/ and don’t forget to put two e’s together to make our long e sound. Here’s the word: cheek, My cheek turns red when I am shy; cheek. [Allow children to spell remaining words, giving sentences for each word: tree, deer, meet, breech, and spleen.] 

5. Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled. [Show the words tee, cheek, tree, deer, meet, breech, spleen the extra words free and tame, and the pseudoword pleek. 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 /E/: ee. Now we are going to read a book called Tate and the Deer. This is a story of a boy named Tate who runs into a deer while hiking in the woods. The deer comes up to Tate and tries to take Tate’s toy, but Tate does not want to share his toy with a deer. Will the deer steal Tate’s toy? Will Tate share with the deer? Let’s pair up and take turns reading Tate and the Deer to find out what happens to Tate’s toy. [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 Tate and the Deer chorally, stopping between page turns to discuss the story.]

Say: Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /E/ = ee, 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 ee 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. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]

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References:

Assessment Worksheet: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Long-e-Worksheets-ee-ea-e-1759778?st=4615bec009920b31eda217f3844d1dc6

I See Long E! https://www.education.com/lesson-plan/i-see-long-e/