"Boo!" Says the Ghost!


By: Jessica Strickland

Beginning Reading Lesson Design

Rationale: For students to become a fluent reader, it is important for them to develop an understanding for the relationship between graphemes and phonemes. It is also important for children to be taught letter-sound correspondence so that they can make connections between sounds in written and spoken letters and words. This lesson will focus on the correspondence oo = /OO/. The students will indentify the correspondence in spoken and written language and by using a meaningful representation of a ghost saying "boo!" Students will also gain an understanding of this correspondence with a letterbox lesson on oo=/OO/, practice reading the words, and by reading a decodable book focusing on oo=/OO/.


*Poster of tongue tickler "The moose and the goose got loose from the zoo when the ghost said 'boo!'"

*Letterboxes (both 2 and 6)

*Letter tiles [o,o,z,m,r,f,d,h,e,s,p ]

*Flash cards with LBL words [ 2-zoo,3- moon, room, food, roof, home 4-spoon, moose]

*Yoo Hoo Moon. Mary Blocksma. Ills. Patience Brewster. Pub: Bantam Books. 1992

*Overhead projector

*Primary paper




1."Today we are going to work with the letter O. Each day when we talk about letters we know that each letter or letters have a sound that goes along with it. With the letter O we already know that o=/o/, but what if we glue on another o and we have oo? When two oo's are glued together they make an /OO/ sound like this /OO/. It sounds just like a ghost saying 'boo!' Let's pretend that you are a ghost saying boo? Wiggle your fingers like you are a ghost scaring someone… 'booooo!'"

2.Next, I am going to direct them to the poster of the tongue tickler. I will read the tongue tickler aloud to them first: The moose and the goose got loose from the zoo when the ghost said 'boo!' Next, we will read it together. "Let's say it all together now: The moose and the goose got loose from the zoo when the ghost said 'boo!'. Now we are going to read it again and stretch out the /OO/, when you hear the /OO/ I want to see you wiggle your fingers like a scary ghost: The mooooose and the goooose got loooose from the zoooo when the ghost said boooo! Very good! I saw lost of scary ghosts out there!"

3."Now I want you to listen closely to these words and tell me in which one you hear the /OO/. Do you hear the /OO/ in food or four? Broom or break? Call or cool? Tool or toll?"

4.Next, instruct students to get out their letter boxes and necessary letter tiles (see materials). "Now we are going to practice spelling some of these words. Remember that not all of our words are going to have /OO/ some of our words are review words so listen closely. I am going to spell a word first." Demonstrate how to do it using the overhead projector. "For the word that I am going to spell I need 4 letter boxes. I am going to spell 'spoon'. I eat my cereal with a spoon. The first sound I hear is /s/, so I know that an 's' goes in the first box. 'Sp'. Next I hear a /p/, so I know that a 'p' goes in the next box. Okay, 'spoo', now I hear /OO/ so I know that sound is two 'o's glued together so they will go in the 3rd box together, and last I hear 'spoon' /n/, so I know to but a 'n' in the last box. Now it is your turn! We are going to start out with two letterboxes." For each word I will tell the students how many letter boxes they will need. I will also provide them with a sentence using the word in context. We will spell 2-[zoo, boo] 3-[moon, food, room, home, roof] 4-[spoon, moose]. I will be walking around to monitor the student's work. If I see a word that is misspelled, I will read the word to them how they spelled it by saying, "This says ____, we want it to say _____." If they still do not get it correct I will show them the correct spelling. After each word I will model the correct spelling on the overhead projector.

5.Once the class has spelled the words using letterboxes we will practice reading the words. I will take out the flashcards and hold them up one by one and call on students to read the word. Then we will go through the words again and read them together as a class. "Now we are going to read some words. What does this card say?"

6.Now the children will practice their writing. "Get out your piece of paper and a pencil. Today, I want you to write about your favorite part of Halloween."  I will use these writing samples to look at the students invented spelling and to see where to guide my next lesson.

7.Next, I will give a book talk on the decodable book Yoo Hoo Moon by: Mary Blocksma. "This story is about a bear, and he has a problem. He can't fall asleep until he sees the moon way up in the sky. One night we waits and waits but the moon never comes up in the sky. Did the moon disappear? What is bear going to do? To find out let's read Yoo Hoo Moon by: Mary Blocksma."

8.I will pass out a worksheet to check for their understanding of the lesson. This assessment includes the students looking at a picture and completing the spelling of the word. "Now we are going to look at this worksheet. Look at each picture and write what it is in the space under the picture." While the students are working on the worksheet, I will call them up individually and have each student read a few pages from the book for another type of assessment for the lesson.


Blocksma, Mary. Yoo Hoo Moon. Ills. Patience Brewster. Pub: Bantam Books. 1992.

Worksheet: http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/longoosound.pdf

 Laura Beth Anderson. "Boo!" It's a Ghost. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/constr/andersonbr.html

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