Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the regular vowel correspondence ou = /ow/. In order to be able to read words, students must be able to recognize the spellings of different words and how those spelling map out a pronunciation. In this lesson, students will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling ou. They will learn a meaning full representation (you say ouch when you get hurt and get a band-aid to make it better), they will spell and read words containing the spelling in a letterbox lesson, and they will read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence ou = /ow/.

Materials: Graphic of a band-aid or hurt body part; cover-up critter; white board/ smart board to show large Elkonin boxes for modeling; individual Elkonin boxes for each student; letter  manipulatives for students; magnetic/ smartboard letters for teacher modeling (i, o, u, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, n, r, t, t, y); list of spelling words on poster or white board to read (out, loud, sour, sing, mouth, dump, flour, count, grouch, trout, cloudy, stoun); decodable text The Clown Who Lost her Smile; scissors, glue, assessment worksheet.

Procedures: 1. Say: “As you know, sometimes we come across words that have letters in them that we don’t quite know what sound they make. To read those words, we just have to figure out the secret code of that the letters say. We already know how to read all of our short vowels and we know that short o says in words like mop and what short u says in words like sub. When we put o and u together the ou in words says /ow/. When I say /ow/ I think of a band-aid because when I get hurt and say ‘ow’, I put on a band-aid to make it better [show graphic]. Now let’s look at the spelling of /ow/ that we will learn today. One way to spell /ow/ is with the letters o and u side by side; this tells you that together they say /ow/. [Write ou on the board]. We can put other consonants on both sides of the letters to make a word but not between them or we change the sound.”

2. Say “Before we learn about the spelling of /ow/, we need to listen for it in words. I hear ou say /ow/ and my mouth opens then I put my lips together but leave a little hole for air to come out in the middle like this. [Make the vocal gesture for /ow/]. I’ll show you first: shout. I heard ou say ow and I felt my lips open then close [make the mouth gesture again slowly]. The ou in home says /ow/. Now you try. If you hear /ow/, say, “I need a band-aid”. If you don’t hear /ow/, say, “I’m okay”. Is it in sky, cloud, mouth, lips, slump, slouch? [have students rub their elbow when they hear ou say /ow/.]

3. Say: “What if I were to spell the word found? “I found a quarter on the sidewalk and bought bubblegum with it”. Found means to discover in this sentence. To spell found in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /f//ow//n//d/. I need 4 boxes. I heard that /ow/ just before the /n/ so I am going to put my ou in the 2nd box. The word starts with /f/, that’s easy; I need an f. Now let’s put that f with our ou that says /ow/. Hmmm…now what letters do we need. Now let’s say it slowly again: /f//ow//n//d/. I think I hear a nosey n in there. Let’s add it in our 3rd box. We only have one box left now. [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: /f//ow//n//d/.] This one is missing /d/.

Now I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with spout on the top and model reading the work.] I’m going to start with the ou; that part says /ow/. Now I’m going to put the beginning letters with it: s- p- ou, /spow/. Now I’ll put that chunk together with the last sound, /spow-t/. Oh, spout, like “I saw water coming out of the spout.”

4. Say: “Now I am going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for out like “We ran out of the door for recess.” For this word, we only need two boxes. Remember to stretch it out if you are unsure about how many letterboxes you need. [/ow//t/] I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress.] You’ll need three boxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound to spell in the first box. Then listen for /ow/. Here’s the word: loud, “The brother likes to play his music really loud”, loud. [Allow children time to spell remaining words, giving sentences for each word: sour, sing, mouth, dump, flour, count, grouch, trout, cloudy.]

5. Say: ‘Now I am going to let you read the word’s you’ve spelled. [Show the words out, loud, sour, sing, mouth, dump, flour, count, grouch, the extra words trout and cloudy, and the pseudoword stoun. Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]

6. Whole Text: Say: “You’ve done a great job with reading words with our new spelling for /ow/: ou. Now we are going to read a book called The Clown Who Lost Her Smile. This is a story about a clown who lost her smile so all she does is frown. When the clown frowns, it makes everyone else frown so that nobody is happy. The people in the town then set out to find her smile; they look everywhere but can they find it? Let’s pair up and take turns reading The Clown Who Lost Her Smile to find out if they can find the clown’s smile and make everyone happy again.” [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 The Clown Who Lost Her Smile chorally, stopping between page turns to discuss.]

7. Assessment: Say: “Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /ow/ = ou, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, you will read the words above each box and match them with a picture from the bottom of the page. You have to decide with word with ou matches which picture. First, try reading all of the words on the page, then cut out the pictures and work on the easiest ones first. Look back over your decisions before gluing the pictures in the boxes under the words. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]

Resources:

Susan Roh, OWWW that Hurts! https://smr0035.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/beginning-reading

Cheryl Ryan, The Clown Who Lost Her Smile, Learning A-Z, 2017: https://1point3.weebly.com/uploads/6/0/1/8/60184271/clownwholosthersmile_clr.pdf

Assessment worksheet: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/OU-and-OW-Worksheets-Activities-NO-PREP-1730786

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