Short Vowel Discrimination

Session 1

1. Begin the lesson by reading Hop on Pop aloud to students. Active Inspire and Promethean boards can link to audio of this book as well. Students may be familiar with Dr. Seuss stories and will be excited to hear one read-aloud. After reading the story, ask students what they noticed about the story. Accept all answers, leading them toward the conclusion that the words in the story rhyme.


2. Choose a page in the book (or have a student volunteer choose a page) and reread it. Ask students to notice which words sound alike, or rhyme.


3. Show students the cover of the book and reread the title. Ask students to identify the words that rhyme (hop and pop). Write these words on the promethean board and ask students what they notice about the two words. Some answers may be:

They both have 3 letters


They both have an o


They both end in p

4. Underline the op rime with the promethean board pen and draw students' attention to the fact that both words end in op. You can also use the pen's erase feature to delete the first letter and explain that all words end in op. Ask students to think of some other words that rhyme with hop or pop (shop, stop, cop, mop, flop, crop, sop, top, plop) and add them to the promethean board. Ask students what they notice about all the rhyming words (they all end in op) and ask volunteers to come up to the board to underline all the op rimes. Each promethean board has a pen with all different fonts and colors that may be chosen to make each underline different. Students can also drag words to different columns on the board to differentiate between three letter words or four letter words. Ea


5. End the lesson by having students clap and chant the onsets and rimes of several words. They should do this by giving the beginning sound of the word, followed by the sound of the rime. For example, for the word hop, students would clap and chant "/h/ /op/ hop." Active Inspire software for the promethean board has songs and letter visuals that will appear as the words are practiced. Save the screens to the promethean board so that they can be pulled up for the next session.


Session 2

1. Gather students around the promethean board from the previous session with op rime words written on it. Read the words aloud with students joining in and discuss the fact that all the words have the op rime at the end and that they rhyme.


2. Present the following sentences. Cover the op rime on all op words:

We like to h--.


We like to h-- on t-- of P--.


St--, you must not h-- on P--.

Tell students that you are going to read the sentences together and say /op/ wherever they see the blanks. Have them practice blending the phonemes together before reading the sentences. Have the student volunteers come up and practice reading the sentences aloud.


3. Reread the first four pages of Hop on Pop. Ask students which words rhyme on these pages (up, pup, cup). Write these words on a new promethean board screen and ask students what they notice about the words. Bring to their attention that all these words end in up and ask volunteers to highlight the up rimes.


4. Present the sentences with up words and cover the up rimes as in the previous exercise:

P-- in c--.


P--p on c--.


C-- on p--.


C-- on c--.


P-- is --.

5. Read the sentences aloud, substituting the /up/ rime in the blanks. Have students practice reading the sentences and blending the phonemes to create words.


Ask student volunteers to match the pictures from the Pup in Cup worksheet to the corresponding sentences (use the enlarged pictures). Pass out the Pup in Cup worksheet and ask students to cut out each section and glue onto a piece of construction paper. Students can practice reading the sentences aloud with a partner.


Session 3

1. Review the previous lessons with students and practice rereading the sentences aloud. You may also want the reread the story.


2. Using the Promethean board write the rhyming words on different parts of the screen and post clip art pictures randomly on the same screen. Ask student volunteers to drag the word under the matching picture.
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3. Talk about which words they put together. Display the screens from previous sessions and ask students which chart each picture would fit on (up or op).