﻿ Icky I

Icky I

Catherine Gardner

Beginning Reading



 Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /i/, the phoneme represented by i.  Students will learn to recognize /i/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (icky sticky hands) and the letter symbol i, practice finding /i/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /i/ in decodable books.




·        graphic image of icky hands

·        cover-up critter

·        Elkonin boxes- one for the teacher to use to model and boxes for all of the children

·        letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or smartboard letters for teacher: f, i, n, l, t, s, h, p, b, g, a, d, r, m, e

·        list of spelling words on display for reading: fin, lit, ship, big, bag, slid, trim, print, blend, bik

·        decodable text: Liz Is Six

·        Assessment worksheet

·        smartboard




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 a, like lap, e, like leg, and today we are going to learn about short i. When I say /i/ I think of something sticky and icky on my hands, that makes me say /i/.


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 the "icky" /i/ sound and my mouth is open and my tongue is slightly lowered.  I am going to say some words, and if you hear /i/ in the word I say, then show me by shaking the icky 'i' off of your hands.  Say, "pit, bat, dig, bet, win" I heard /i/ in some of those words too, great job!  I like how you used your hands to show when you heard the icky /i/ sound.


3. Say: Now let's use our letter boxes to show how to spell a word.  We will spell some words that have the /i/ sound and some of the words will have short vowel sounds that we have already learned.  Each box in our letterboxes represents a different sound in the word, and sometimes words have more letters than sounds.  Some words have two letters that make one sound and that sound will only need one letterbox.  I am going to spell the word drip.  I need to stretch it out to find the sounds- d--r--iii--p.  I will need 4 letterboxes because my word has four sounds, /d/, /r/, /i/, /p/.


4. Say: Now I'm going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You'll start out with three letterboxes, which means that the first words will have three sounds.  You will use your letters and Elkonin boxes to spell the following words.

          Say:  spell 'fin'.  The fish has a fin. (check)

          Say:  spell 'lit'.  I lit the candle. (check)

          Say:  spell 'ship'. The pirate has a ship. (check)

          Say:  spell 'big'. That is a big dog. (check)

          Say:  spell 'bag'. The bag of chips. (check)

          Say:  Now we are going to use four letter boxes which means four phonemes.

          Say:  spell 'slid'. I slid down the slide. (check)

          Say:  spell 'trim'. I need to trim my hair. (check)

          Say:  Now we will use five letterboxes.

          Say:  spell 'print'. I will print the paper. (check)

          Say:  spell 'blend'. I will blend the sounds. (check)


5. Say: Now everyone is going to read the words we spelled. Watch me do it first. I will read fin. I see the short I that makes the /i/ sound. I will use cover-ups to make the sounds for everything before the vowel. Then I will add the vowel and what follows. "fff-iii-nn", "fin". Now you try these words (point to words on smartboard- lit, ship, big, bag, slid, trim, print, blend.)


6. Say: You've done a great job and reading words with our new sound i=/i/. Now we are going to read a book called Liz Is Six. This is a story of a girl named Liz who gets a baseball mitt for her birthday.  Liz and a pig are playing baseball and the pig gets a hit.  I wonder what will happen in the baseball game, let's read to find out.  You will read the book with a partner, using your cover-up critters.  Then the whole class will read the book and we will talk about what happened in the story about Liz.


7. Say: Now we are going to practice writing with our message of the day.  On your primary paper, write about what your favorite sport is, using the prompt "My favorite sport is" and completing the sentence.


8. Say: (assessment) Now, I want to see how well you can read words with the icky /i/ sound.  On the worksheet provided, circle all of the words that have the /i/ sound in them.  Then write them on the lines below the pig in ABC order.



Worksheet:  http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics/short-i-abc_IIIII.pdf


Tijera Marshell:  Icky Drippy Ice Cream (http://www.auburn.edu/%7Etmm0014/marshallbr.htm)


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