Building Skills
Phonological Awareness
Say the words square, shape, day, and plain, exaggerating the long a. Have children repeat the words. Ask: What sound do all of these words have in common? Have children repeat the sentence: May plays with the gray clay all day. Explain that all of the words with the /a/ sound are the long a.
Phonics
Long /a/
Write the words shape, tape, day, and plain on the board. Say the words and have children repeat them. Underline the letters a, ay, and ai. Explain that these letters all make the long a sound and that some sounds can be spelled more than one way. Have children brainstorm to come up with some of their own long a words to add to the list.
Word Work
Have children look at page 8 and find the word half-circle. Point out the hyphen and explain that when you make a compound word, you sometimes use a hyphen. With some words, you can make a compound without a hyphen as in chalkboard or with a space between the words as in food chain.
Mechanics
Have children turn to page 5 and point out the commas in the second sentence. Explain that when you list items in a sentence, commas are used to separate the items. Have them look for other examples of commas in a series (pages 7, 9, and 15). Explain to children that commas are used to separate words in a list. They are like written pauses. To illustrate this concept, read a list of words (butter, lettuce, flour, pepper, food-coloring, syrup) and do not pause between words. Now read them with pauses for the commas. Ask: Could you understand me better when I did not pause, or when I did pause? Do you think it is easier to understand a written list with pausing commas or without?
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