Miss McRae's

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 i, like tip, and today
we are going to learn about long I and the silent e signal that is used to make I say its name,
/I/. When I say /I/ I think of a pirate saying, “I have an eyepatch!” [show graphic image].

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2. Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /I/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I
listen for /I/ in words, I hear i say its name /I/ and my lips make a little I shape like this.
[Make vocal gesture for /I/.] I’ll show you first: hide. I heard i say its name and I felt my lips
make a little I [make a rectangular motion around pursed lips]. There is a long I in hide. Now I’m
going to see if it’s in skill. Hmm, I didn’t hear i say its name and my lips didn’t make that
rectangular little i. Now you try. If you hear /I/ say, “I have an eyepatch.” If you don’t hear /I/ say,
“That’s not it.” Is it in ice, tide, ripe, lick, slim, strike? [Have children make a rectangular motion
around their pursed lips when they feel /I/ say its name.]

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3. Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /I/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /I/ is with
the letter I and a signal e at the end of the word to tell me to say I’s name. [Write i_e on the
board.] This blank line here means there is a consonant after i, and at the end of the word there
is a little silent e signal. What if I want to spell the word strike? “If I get a strike when I’m bowling,
I might win the game.” Strike in this sentence means to knock down all the pins at once. To spell strike in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word so I stretch it out and count: /s//t//r//I//k/. I need 5 boxes. I heard that /I/ just before the /k/ so I’m going to put an I in the 4th box and the silent e signal outside the last box. The word starts with /s/, that’s easy; I need an s. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going to say it slowly, /s//t//r//I//k/. I think I heard /t/ so I’ll put a t right after
the s. One more before the /I/, hmm . . . /s//t//r//I//k/, I think I heard growling /r/ so I need an r.
I have one empty box now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /s//t//r//O//k/.]
The missing one is /k/ = k.

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4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with
two boxes for ice. Ice is when water freezes, “My mom puts ice in our drinks.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? What about silent e, did you remember to put it outside the boxes? 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 /I/ and don’t forget to put the signal silent e at the end, outside the boxes. Here’s the word: tide, I looked into the sea and saw the tide come up to my feet; tide. [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: t – i – d – e and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: ripe; I cannot eat ripe fruit. [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 /I/ in it before you spell it: lick; Did you lick my ice cream while I was gone? Did you need a silent e? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear i say its name. We spell it with our short vowel i. [volunteer spells it on the front board.] Did you
remember to spell /k/ with a ck? Now let’s try 4 phonemes: slime; The slime was gooey. One more then we’re done with spelling, and this time you need five boxes: strike; If I get a strike, I might win. Remember to stretch it out to get this tough word.

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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 strike on the top and model reading the word.]
First I see there’s a silent e on the end; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s
the vowel i. It must say /I/. 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.] /s//t/ = /st/ + /r/ = /str/. Now I’m going
to blend that with /I/ = /strI/. Now all I need is the end, /k/ = /strIk/. Strike; 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.]
s t r i k e

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6. Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /I/: i_e. Now we
are going to read a book called Leon’s Lie. This is a story of a lion named Leon who gets into trouble with the teacher, but instead of saying sorry and accepting the consequences, he tells a big lie. We’ll have to read on together with a buddy to see what lie he told. [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 Leon’s Lie aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

7. Say: That was a fun story. What was Leon’s Lie? Right, he told the teacher that it was the cat who stole the dice.
What did he take? Right, some dice. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /I/ = i_e, 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 i_e 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.]
Resources:
Noie Yancey, Oh, Oh, My Knee Hurts: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/yanceybr.htm
McRae, H. (2020) Leon’s Lie. Hard copy.