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Through Three Cheese Trees Three Free Fleas Flew

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beginning Reading

Lauren Ayres

 

Rational: For the student to become an efficient reader it is important to be able to recognize that phonemes correspond with letters. With the knowledge they will gain from this activity, students will learn to spell, recognize, and read words that contain the correspondence ee = /E/. Through doing a long E letter box lesson, students will gain experience spelling with the letter combination ee = /E/ as well as decoding after the spell the word. 

 

Materials:

  • Notecards with long /E/ words (need, three, ate, stare, cheese, knee, been, spleen)

  • Letterboxes and letters (ee, n, d, w, k, s, b, f, r, l, t, t, c, h)

  • Book: Lee and the Team

  • Primary writing paper

  • Pencils

  • On the board, write, “Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew. Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze. Freezy trees made these trees' cheese freeze. That's what made these three free fleas sneeze.”

  • List of comparative words. Example: peel/cut, beep/honk, tree/trunk, ect.

 

Procedures:

1. Introduce the lesson by showing a card with the letter /E/. Review and ask what the letter /E/ says (both short e and long E). The long E is the “smiling” sound. Pull your lips back and smile, keep your mouth mostly closed, and turn on your voice. The back of your tongue should be up and the sides of your tongue touching the sides of your upper teeth. Now your mouth muscles should feel tight when you say it “eeeeee.”

 

2. Now ask the student to come up with a word that makes the long /E/ sound. A harder long E word would be screech as in, the car came to a screeching stop. But even though it is a little harder, if you use the long E rules and would it out; "s....c.....eeeeeeeeeee...chhhhhhh." it becomes easy to spell.

 

3. Next discuss how there are different ways to make the long E sound. Show them a board with “Through three cheese trees” and have them point out the words with the ee = /E/ correspondence.

 

4. Now read the first line on the board which is your tongue twister, “Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew.” Now read it again slower drawing out the long E sounds. “Through threeeeeeeee cheeeeeese treeeeeees threeeeee freeeeeeeee fleas flew.”

 

5. Demonstrate how to use letter boxes then recite words and ask them to spell them out with their letter tiles. (2) see, ate, bee,(3) need, three, week, free,(4) fleet, stare (5) street.

 

6. Booktalk: Lee and the Team. “Lee’s baseball team has a game today, but they are all laying in the weeds when they need be going to the game. Lee tries to hurry them but they don’t listen. Oh no, there is a bee behind Lee! Do you think the bee will try to sting him? Will they make it to the game?” (Have the student read the story)

 

7. Now that the student has read the book. Ask them to go back and write down all of the ee = /E/ words they read in “Lee and the Team.” (Tell children that to write the letter e, you “start below the fence and make a line across. Next, go up and around to the bottom; like the small letter c.)

 

Assessment: Give child list of words to compare and get them to identify which work contains ee = /E/. Have them read the words in the letter box lesson to practice decoding the long E correspondence. 

 

References:

Cushman, Sheila.  Lee and the Team.  Educational Insights:  Carson, CA, 1990.

 

Thaxton, Wade. Beginning Reading Design: Wade made lemonade in the shade. March 9, 2015.

            http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/catalysts/thaxtonbr.html

 

York, Lyndsay. Meet Lee, the Sleepy Bee: Beginning Reading. March 9, 2015.

            http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/openings/yorkbr.html

 

 

 

 

**This site, and all content displayed on it were created as a part of a class assignment.  There is no intent to portray any employment relationship between the author and any school district or school or other employment agency.

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