The Bad Seed
This is an Orton-Gillingham (OG) lesson to teach short a. This should be taught once students show mastery of the 21 consonant sounds (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, qu, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, and z) and short e. It includes all of the components of an OG lesson, so that you can begin to teach like a reading specialist today!
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Sound Drill
Every OG lesson should begin with a sound drill. This is where students are shown letter flashcards of mastered sounds. They are shown the card and are asked to provide the corresponding sound. For this lesson, students will be shown consonant flashcards only, and will be asked to provide the sound that each letter makes. For example, when shown the b card, students should respond /b/. It is important to “clip” sounds when teaching this, so students should be guided to respond /b/ not /buh/.
Auditory Drill
The next component to a successful OG lesson is the auditory drill. For this part of the lesson, students need a white board or gel board.
The teacher will dictate sounds and the students will write the corresponding letter/letters on their white board. For this lesson the teacher should dictate sounds for each consonant. There are 21 dictated sounds total, as /k/ corresponds to both c and k and the only mastered vowel is e. For this sound, the teacher will say, “The sound is /k/. Repeat. You know two ways to spell this sound. Spell.” Students should then write c, k on their boards. This letters should be lowercase and formed correctly. After the letter is written, students can be asked to underline it left to right while repeating the sound. This underline should be where the lowercase letter sits on the line. If it is p, the underline should be under the belly of the p, not under the bottom of the letter. For each sound the teacher should use the following script:
Teacher: “The sound is _____. Repeat.”
Student: Repeats sound.
Teacher: “Spell.” (If /k/, add “You know two ways to spell this sound.)
Student: Writes letter.
Teacher: “Underline the letter left to right where it sits on the line and say _____ says _______.”
Student: Underlines the letter left to right where it sits on the line and says, “____ says ____.”
Teach short a
Teachers will show the card for the new sound and say the sound that the letter makes. For this lesson, teachers will show the a card and say /a/. Students will repeat the sound. This card will become part of the sound drill stack after this lesson.
The teacher and students will brainstorm words that contain short a for about 3 minutes and list these.
The teacher will read The Bad Seed aloud reminding the student to listen for words that contain short a. These will be listed as the story is read. It is not necessary to list every word, but more important for students to begin hearing the sound in words and identifying these words independently.
Dictation
This is where students begin spelling using the new sound short a. The words that they are spelling should only include MASTERED sounds. For example, an appropriate word to dictate for spelling would be lax, but not lash since digraphs have not been taught yet.
This can be using letter tiles or paper to practice. It is important to have students use paper for at least one of the dictations.
For the sounds, it works exactly like the auditory drill.
For the words, the teacher says the word. Students should tap out each sound in the word. The best way to do this is working left to right on their non-dominant hand (so pinky to thumb for right-handed students and thumb to pinky for left-handed students) but if students are resistant they could also use a pop-it to tap out the sounds. After tapping, they write the word.
If the word is correct, move on to the next word. If the word is incorrect, have students tap out the sounds they wrote and blend. Ask, “Was this the word?” Repeat the word again for students. If they still struggle, model tapping and naming the letters and then have them do it with you.
For the sentence, the teacher should read the entire sentence and then have students repeat it. It is important that they are able to repeat the sentence back to you before being asked to write it. If they need it repeated, it is important to repeat the entire sentence, not just the words they need to write next. Aftee writing, students will check their sentence with CUPS. They will mark each box as they go. First they check capitalization. They make sure the first word of the sentence and any proper nouns are capitalized. Then for understanding have them touch each word as you repeat the sentence back to them to make sure they didn’t miss any words. They then check punctuation to make sure they didn’t forgot or use the incorrect mark. Then they tap out each word to check their spelling. It is important that this does not include phonetically irregular words (said, from, was) as these cannot be tapped to read. These words should be underlined before checking spelling. If the word they tap doesn’t match the dictated word, go through the same process as you did for spelling words.
Red Words
Red words are phonetically irregular words. They don’t follow the expected pattern. To teach these words, identify how many sounds are in the word and which letters say the expected vs. unexpected sounds. The unexpected sounds are the “heart part” or letters they need to remember by heart. Students should trace the letters on a bumpy board, sand paper, the table or any other rough surface three times. They will then arm tap the word, write it, and trace it three more times. They repeat the tracing on the tactile surface one more time and then trace the word three more times and then write it. They then write a sentence and draw a picture for the word. These words should be frequently dictated for students to spell.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary should be chosen from the text and should be tier 2 words only. Tier 2 words are words that are found in multiple contexts, have multiple meanings, and are not common nor domain-specific. The words should be given in context and the student asked to guess the meaning of the word using clues in the sentence. Multiple sentences can be provided for this.
After uncovering the meaning of the word, the student will write the sentence from the text, a student-friendly definition provided by the teacher, synonyms, and antonyms. They will draw a picture to help them remember the meaning of the word.
It is important to review the word frequently and to provide as many exposures as possible (students may need up to 14 exposures to commit the word to memory).
This can be done by asking questions. For example if the word is keen, the teacher could ask, “If a dog clumsily crashes into a wall and can’t ever find his bed, does he have keen eyesight?” Or, “If an owl can see a mouse from 100 feet above, does the owl have keen eyesight?”
Morphology
Morphology is the study of the parts of words. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a word. Morphology involves direct instruction of prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Students should make flashcards of the learned morphemes and practice regularly.
The same vocabulary approach can be used to review morphemes. For example, “If someone is unprepared for the test, do you think they will do well?” Or, “What reason may a teacher ask a student to rewrite a sentence?”
Comprehension
Comprehension is understanding what was read. It may include work with text structure (problem and solution, cause and effect, sequencing, compare and contrast, description), author’s purpose, story-mapping, character traits, stick writing, literal and inferential questioning, or many other strategies.
Writing
Writing is an essential component to literacy and these plans explicitly teach students how to compose a simple paragraph with graphic organizers, publishing pages, and a student rubric. Teacher PPT plans are included.
Binder Cover & Dividers
This resource includes a cover and divider pages to help students organize a science of reading binder!
Congrats! You are on your way to teaching like a reading specialist!
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They include rationale, methodology, games, activities, and manipulatives so that you can start right away!
Stephanie Augusto, Ed.S 