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Play with -AY

Kelly Jones

Beginning Reading Design

  • Rationale: This lesson will teach students about the long vowel ay = /A/. To be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. In this lesson students will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling ay. They will learn a meaningfull representation (raising your hands in the air as you play on the playground), they will spell and read words containing this spelling in a Letterbox Lesson, and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence ay = /A/.

  • Materials: Graphic image of a child sliding with his hands in the air; cover-up critter; whiteboard or smartboard Elkonin boxes for modeling and individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: h,a,y,t,r,p,l,w,k,e,s; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: hay, tray, play, wake, spray, stray; decodable text: Rain Day, and assessment worksheet.

  • Procedures:

    • Say: 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 a, like saw, and today we are going to learn about long A with the hanging y that is used to make A say its name, /A/. When I say /A/ I think of someone going down a slide with their hands in the air [show graphic image].

    • Say: Before we learn about the spelling of /A/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /A/ in words, I hear a say its name /A/ and my mouth opens wide to where I see my teeth and my tongue is pulled back like this. [Make vocal gesture for /A/.] I’ll show you first: play. I heard a say its name and I felt my mouth open wide and to show my teeth [point to teeth]. There is a long A in play. Now I’m going to see if it’s in saw. Hmm, I didn’t hear a say its name and mouth didn’t open wide to show my teeth. Now you try. If you hear /A/ say, “raise your hands in the air” If you don’t hear /A/ say, “keep your hands down”. Is it in let, way, stop, pay, say, lick? [Have children raise their hands in the air when they feel /A/ say its name.]

    • Say: Now let’s look at the spelling of /A/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /A/ is ay and the y at the end tells me to say A’s name. [write ay on the board.] What if I want to spell the word stray? “I found a stray dog.” Stray means lost or without a home in the sentence. To spell stray 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/ /A/. I need 4 boxes. I heard that /A/ at the very end so I am going to put an ay in the 4th letterbox. The word starts with /s/. That’s easy; I need an s. Now it gets a little tricky so I am going to say it slowly, /s/ /t/ /r/ /A/. I think I heard a /t/ so I’ll put a t right after the s. I have one empty box now. [point to the letters in the boxes when stretching out the word: /s/ /t/ /r/ /A/] The mission on is /r/= r.

    • Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for hay. “the cow ate the hay.” What should go in the first box? [respond to the children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? What about the y, did you remember to put it in the same box with the a? 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 the /A/ and don’t forget to place the y right after the a. Here’s the word: tray, grandma ate on a tray in the hospital; tray. [allow children to spell the word.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: t-r-ay and see if you spelled it the same way. Try another with three boxes: play; I play on the slide; play. [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 /A/ in it before you spell it: fan; I turned on the fan. Did you need the letter y? why not? Right, because we don’t hear a say its name. We spell it with our short vowel a. [Volunteer spells it on the front board.] Now let’s try 4 phonemes: spray; I spray the window with cleaner. One more then we’re done with spelling, stray; I saved a stray dog. Remember to stretch the words out.

    • 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 stray on the top and model reading the word.]  First I see there’s a y following the a; that’s my signal that the vowel will say its name. There’s the vowel a. It must say /A/. 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//r/=/str/. Now I’m going to blend that with /A/ = /strA/. Stray; 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.]

    • Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /A/: ay. Now we are going to read a book called Rain Day. Jake and Nate like to play outside. Today it is raining. Jake and Nate cannot go outside.  Let’s get into pairs and take turns reading Rain Day to find out what Jake and Nate will do on this rainy day. [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 Rain Day aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

    • Say: That was a good book wasn’t it? What did they do on their rainy day? Right! They played with clay. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /A/= ay, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, the student will match the word that best fits with the picture. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]

  • Resources:

  • Decodable Book:

  • Assessment:

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