OO, have you heard the cow say Moo?
A Beginning Reading Lesson
By Meg Walker
Rationale: This lesson’s purpose is to teach the students about the phoneme /oo/. To read well children must be able to decode and recognize that /oo/ differs from the short vowel /o/. In OO, have you heard the cow say Moo?, children ill learn how to read and spell words containing /oo/. They will learn a well-known sound a cow makes to reiterate the /oo/, in “moo”. They will learn to spell words containing /oo/ and do a Lettterbox lesson along with a book that is specific to the phoneme /oo/.
Materials: Image or picture of cow “saying” moo, Elkonin boxes for each student, letter squares for each student to use, list of letters for teacher to use, white board or smartboard for teacher to use, letters for teacher: m, oo, n, c, r, t, l, p, b, ck, o, a, k, f, i, d, s. Hand out story titled, “A Hoot”. Coverup critter.
Procedure:
1. Say: If we want to become expert readers we need to learn how to understand all of the sounds letters can make. We know what the short vowel o from words like mom and cop. Now we will learn about the phoneme /oo/. [Hold up a dry erase board with oo written on it] [Make the sound /oo/ and drag it out.] This sound is made up of two os. When we think about it think of the sound a cow makes, “Moooooo”.
2. Before we try to spell the sound let’s listen to some words and see if we can recognize it in them. When I am trying to hear the sound /oo/ in words I hear /oo/ like at the end of moo and my lips are puckered [make vocal gesture for /oo/]. I will say a word first, coo. I heard /oo/ like in moo and felt my lips pucker up like this [circle your puckered lips for emphasis]. The phoneme /oo/ is in coo. Now let’s see if it’s in block, did you feel your lips pucker and hear /oo/? If you did say, “oo that sounds right” and if you didn’t say, “oo I didn’t hear it”. Is it in moon, rock, tank, roof, lift? [Get students to see if they can feel their mouths pucker and hear /oo/ in any of those words].
3. Say: Now let’s look at how the sound /oo/ is spelled and we can learn it! The way you spell /oo/ is with two letter os right next to each other [write oo on the dry erase board to show the class]. The two os right next to each other tells us that it makes oo instead of the short vowel o [make lips pucker and show oo and then show o and how lips do not pucker]. What would we do if we want to spell the word bloom? “If we watch the seeds in the Spring we will see them bloom.” Bloom means turn into a flower here. To figure out how to spell bloom we need to know how many phones are in the word. So let’s stretch it out and see how many there are: /b/l/oo/m/. We need 4 boxes. When I said the word I heard /oo/ come right before /m/ so I will put the oo in the 3rd box and the /m/ in the 4th box. The word begins with /b/ so that’s not hard it goes in the 1st box. Now let’s think about what we have left. [Say the word slowly again]. /b/l/l/oo/m/. I think the only one we’re missing is a /l/ and it goes in the box left which is the 2nd right after /b/.
b
l
oo
m
4. Now we are going to spell some words in letterboxes. You can start out with the easy ones and only use two boxes for loo. Loo is another word for the restroom. “I really need to use the loo Miss. Walker”. What letter should go in the first box? [Take answers from the students and respond]. Now what goes in the second box? I hope you remembered that the two os go in the same box together not separate boxes for each o. I will come around and look at your Letterboxes and see how it went. [Check all of the classes answers]. The next word will need three boxes so get another box out. Listen for the first sound in the word to go in the first box and then listen for /oo/ to see which box it goes in. The word is: tool. I really need a new tool to fix the sink. [Give them time to spell their words in their boxes]. Let’s see if you got it! Look how I spell it on the board : t-oo-l and see if yours looks the same as mine. Another word with three boxes we can try is mood. I am in a very good mood today. [Let a student spell it on your board in the front of the class to check their work]. Next word is lock. Do you need /oo/ for lock? Listen carefully and remember to see if your lips pucker like they do in oo. You didn’t hear oo did you? Yes, you heard the short vowel o. [Let a volunteer spell it on the board for the class to see]. Did you remember to use /ck/ for the k sound at the end of lock? Let’s try a word with four phonemes: spoon. The spoon was missing from my plate at breakfast. [Check everyone’s spelling]. One last word and this one has five letterboxes. The word is s. The word is s. The word is snoop. If I snoop around in my parent’s room I will get in trouble. Remember to listen for the oo sound and listen to all the other letters. It helps to stretch the word out.
5. Now we are going to read the words we have spelled today. Before we do that I am going to show you how I read a tough word. [Show a poster with the word bloom on the top and model reading the word]. I see that there is an oo so that tells me it will sound like oo not the short vowel /o/. I will use a cover up critter to get the first part [uncover and blend /b/l/] now we are going to blend the oo and the /m/ [blend b/l/+/oo/m]. Bloom: great job! Now you all try together. [Have all students read the word together out loud and then call on individual students to try after].
6. Say: You guys have done such a good job reading and spelling our new words with /oo/. There is a short story we are going to read now called A Hoot. This is the story about a little boy who is in a new home and hears a friend out the window who makes a hoot sound. Do you guys ever hear noises outside your bedroom window when you are trying to go to sleep? Let’s see what happens! We are going to get into groups and both read A Hoot back and forth. [Let the children get into small groups and go back and forth reading sentences of the story and talking about what is happening].
7. Wasn’t that an interesting short story? What was outside of his window? Do you guys remember? What sound did the animal make? I’m so glad you realized it was an owl and that they make the hoot sound! We’re almost done but let’s talk one last time about how we spell oo. Let’s see if you can figure out where oo belongs. Please look into the box of word choices and see which one oo goes best to make the short story make sense. Double check your answers to be sure you chose the one the one that makes the most sense.
Resources
Murray, G. 2004, Jake’s Joke. Reading Genie: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/bookindex.html
Reading Elephant, 2020, A Hoot.
Brown, Caitlin. Bake a Cake with Jake
Return to Breakthrough Here!