Long e Spelled ee, ea
ABOUT THIS LESSON
Primary Phonics Skill Objectives
• Decode and encode long e words spelled with ee and ea.
• Read long e vowel team words in connected text.
Secondary Phonics Skill: long e words spelled ey
Phonemic Awareness Skill: blend and segment spoken words with medial long vowel sounds
Comprehension Focus: describe characters in a story
Unit 4
Use the Read Aloud Card to review the unit theme, vocabulary, and phonics skills category. Use the Formative Assessment Card for more responsive support.
Theme: Animals in Groups
Skills Category: Vowel Teams for Long Vowel Sounds
ABOUT THIS TEXT SET
• Knowledge Building: In the nonfiction texts, children continue learning about animals that live in groups. They learn about the traits of sheep. They learn vocabulary such as bleat, group, flock, and sheep
• Figuring Out Feelings: In the fiction texts, children explore habits of Belonging and Kindness.
Text
Title of Text Sheep Do Not Go to the Beach!
Text Type fiction; animal fantasy
Preview
A sheep goes to the beach. What happens when the sheep gets too hot?
Hide and Sheep at the Sea
In a Sheep Flock Sheep! Your Teeth Are Green!
Sheep is woken from a dream on the beach. Will he play hide and seek with his friends?
What happens when one sheep cannot find his flock?
Sheep have needs. They live in a group, eat grass, and bleat to communicate.
Bree and Finley check each other’s teeth and act like good friends.
Before Reading (3–5 minutes)
Warm Up with Phonemic Awareness
Phoneme Segmenting and Blending: Say the word. Guide children to segment the word into its sounds, and then blend those sounds together to say the whole word.
seat /s/ /ē/ /t/
cheek /ch/ /ē/ /k/
week /w/ /ē/ /k/
/l/
Introduce Phonics Focus: Long ee, ea
• Introduce the skill by using the chant and other prompts on the Long e Sound-Spelling card.
• Say: The letters ee together and ea together both stand for the long e sound.
• Write the vowel teams ea and ee on a whiteboard, as well as sheep and beach. Say the words aloud together as you underline ee and ea.
Prepare to Read
beach /b/ /ē/ /ch/
IF NEEDED
Blending Suppor t
For groups who need extra practice, select and write these words on a whiteboard: bet, beat, feed, fed, leaf, heat. If children are having difficulty reading the words, model stretching out any sounds that are continuous (e.g., m, f, sh) to model how to smoothly blend the sounds together (e.g., /lll/ /ēēē/ /f).
Review words, concepts, and other text complexities of the book to anticipate children’s challenges. Consider the oral language proficiency, background knowledge, and decoding skills of each small group.
WORDS TO WATCH IN THE STUDENT BOOK
Primary Skill Words ee: whee, need, green, see, sheep, feet, meet, beep ea: neat, beach, please, sea, bleat
Secondary Skill Words ey: key
High-Frequency Words Regular: this, is, I, it, that, a, can, see, will, use, at, not, with, no, on, get, in, with, we Irregular: what, for, the, do, to, have, you, my, of
Story Words (not decodable) group, belong
Knowledge Building Words bleat: a sound that sheep and goats make group: a number of things, people, or animals that are together sheep: animals that have a lot of wool (a kind of hair) on their bodies
WHAT MAKES THE STUDENT BOOK RICH
Get to know the book so you’re ready to support children when they need it.
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
• Sheep often need to have their wool sheared. Having their hair taken off means they don’t get too hot in the summer.
• Inflatable inner tubes are water toys.
• Sand can be ver y hot at a beach in summer or at a tropical location.
LANGUAGE
• Sheep is a word that is both singular (one sheep) and plural (three sheep).
• The word whee can be said when someone sees or does something fun.
• In this stor y, belong means something is in the right place, like children belong at school.
• “This is neat!” means that someone really likes something. Neat also means clean.
IF NEEDED
Ar ticulation Support
Support phoneme articulation by addressing how your lips and tongue are used to produce the sound. With the long e sound, your mouth forms the widest smile compared to all other vowel sounds.
PRINT & TEXT STRUCTURE
• Speech bubbles are used to show when each character is talking.
• Words for sounds (beep and bleat) appear on the page, outside of the body text.
During Reading (8–10 minutes)
Read Sheep Do Not Go to the Beach! twice during a teacher-led group. Vary the amount of support you give, including the reading mode and guiding prompts. Pause on occasion to think aloud or ask questions focused first on the skill and then on monitoring comprehension. Use prompts as a model. Introduce the text: We’ll read a story about a sheep who is ready to go to the beach! Will the sheep have a good time?
First Read
Mode Echo Read
Set the Purpose Listen to me read. Then, echo me. Let’s watch for and say all the long e words.
Skills
Prompts
p. 1 Shout with me: Whee! Neat!
pp. 4–5 Which word do you see two times? (beach)
pp. 8–9 I see beep. This word has ee. How do you say it?
p. 16 I will be the first sheep: Bleat! Now you’re the other sheep. (Bleat!)
Choral Read
As we read together, we’re going to say /ē/ each time we see ee or ea in a word.
p. 1 There are two long e words on this page. Which has an ee? (whee) Which has an ea? (neat)
p. 7 What ee and ea words are there? (green, sheep; please, neat, beach)
p. 11 Make sheep sounds with me: Bleat! Bleat!
Whisper Read
As you read quietly, say /ē/ when you read words with ee or ea
p. 1 Find two words that have long e sounds and show the sheep is excited. (whee, neat)
pp. 4–5 Find which character says,
“Sheep do not go to the beach!”
pp. 8–9 After your read, count how many ee and ea words you see.
Check for Comprehension: What does one character want to do and the other doesn’t want to? (go to the beach)
Second Read
Set the Purpose Guide children to read in pairs, helping each other read long e words.
Skills Prompts p. 2 What is a color word with ee in it? (green)
pp. 4–5 Which ee word tells what kind of animal we see? (sheep)
p. 15 I see an ea word that means the sheep is being polite. What is it? (please)
Listen and prompt children as you observe their reading of long e words.
p. 1 Do a pretend shout for exclamations like Whee!
pp. 8–9 Notice ey in the word key. What sound do you hear? (long e)
p. 16 Find three words that rhyme. (feet, neat, meet)
Divide the group. Half reads as the first sheep; the other half reads as the second sheep.
p. 7 First sheep, give your best Please! Second sheep, stomp your feet as you read your line.
p. 13 Shout the car horn’s sound. (Beep! Beep!)
pp. 8–9 Try to sound like a sheep when you say the lines. (Bleat! Bleat!)
Check for Comprehension: What is an event at the end that changes one of the sheep? (He gets his wool cut.)
IF NEEDED -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Decoding Suppor t
If a child is not yet able to decode a word with ee or ea:
• Say words together to point out the difference between short e and long e. Examples: met/meet, net/neat, bet/bleat, fed/feed
• Reinforce that the long e sound can be spelled different ways. Find words in the book to show that ee and ea come in the middle (sheep, please) or end of words (see, sea).
• Model sound-by-sound blending, such as /sh/ /ē/ /p/, sheep
• Model onset-rime blending, such as /b/-each, beach
IF NEEDED --------------------------------
Multilingual Learner Support
Point out when future tense appears in the text, starting with p. 4: “I will use it at the beach.” Have children practice building off the “I will” repetition in the book, and challenge them to use long e words, such as: I will eat. I will meet a friend. I will need new socks.
After Reading (4–6 minutes)
Review the Phonics Focus: Long ee, ea ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Say: Remember, we can read long e words that are spelled with ee or ea
• Go back to a few pages of the book to find ee and ea words. Point to individual words, and have children read them.
• Lead cloze reading where you begin a sentence and have children say the word with the target skill. Example: On p. 2, say: It is a ___ tube. (green)
Reflect on the Book
Talk about the meaning of the story. Discuss the questions in the back of the Student Book. Continue the conversation. Ask:
• In the beginning, how does the sheep feel about going to the beach? How can you tell? (He’s excited. There are exclamation points. He says what he will do when he gets to the beach.)
• What happens that shows the beach is different than the sheep expected? (He says, “My feet!” and “I am hot!”)
• What makes the sheep happy at the end? (swimming with his tube)
Prepare for Practice
• Prepare the small group to work on the digital app, reread, or practice.
• See p. 20 of the Program Guide for implementation options and classroom management ideas.
FIGURING OUT FEELINGS
• Review the habit of Belonging with children. See p. 36 of the Program Guide for a definition.
• Discuss the Figuring Out Feelings questions in the back of the Student Book. Then, continue the conversation.
• Explain that at first the sheep in the stor y thinks he belongs at the beach. Then he feels like he doesn’t belong at the beach because his hair makes him too hot. The sheep feels better when he gets help from a group of other sheep who are used to being there. Ask: Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong somewhere? What helped you feel better?
IF NEEDED
Multilingual Learner Support
Invite children to discuss responses with a partner before sharing with the small group. Encourage speaking in complete sentences and provide oral sentence frames, as needed. Examples: I felt like I did not belong when ___. I was upset because ___.
Progress Monitoring
Give children time to practice (per the next pages). Then, see how well they learned long e spelled ee, ea.
Quick Skills Check: Dictate words with short and long e. Have children write them on double-lined paper: leg, feed, bed, heat. If children have difficulty, segment the sounds, model stretching continuous sounds (e.g., /sss/, /mmm/, /lll/, /rrr/) or bouncing stop sounds (e.g., /t/, /p/, /g/), inserting pauses between the sounds for further support. For challenge, use sentences: We need a meal. He sets up a feast.
Choose which additional forms of practice meet the needs of your individual children. Model for children and guide them to work independently, with a partner, or in a group.
Digital Learning
• Use the Digital Teacher Tool to read Sheep Do Not Go to the Beach! as an interactive eBook with students to model skill words and fluent reading.
• Have students work independently on digital reading and skill practice.
Digital Reading
• Have students use the Student App to demonstrate their progress with the skill in connected text. Then, students will have the chance to read three more digital texts in the set for personalized practice.
• Screener Digital Text: Hide and Sheep at Sea
• Shor t Digital Text: In a Sheep Flock
• Medium Digital Text: Sheep!
• Long Digital Text: Your Teeth Are Green!
Digital Foundational Skills Practice
Have students use the Student App for differentiated practice through engaging activities that develop their word-level reading, including:
• Phonics practice with long e spelled ee, ea and cumulative review
• Phonemic awareness practice
• Word recognition and automaticity practice
Familiar Reading
Children can look for and highlight long e words with ee or ea in the Sheep Do Not Go to the Beach! mini book.
Children can also reread mini book versions of texts previously introduced to review and cement prior skills.
Use the mini book for spelling words. Have children work with a partner to find three words in the book with ee to practice spelling. Provide doublelined paper for them to write.
Extend by writing letters e, ee, ea, f, m, n, s, t and have children write words such as me, see, sea, feet, meet, neat.
Children can read the mini book version of Sheep Do Not Go to the Beach! with a partner.
Children can choose long e words with ee or ea in the Sheep Do Not Go to the Beach! mini book to ask their partner to find.
Children can read the mini book version of Sheep Do Not Go to the Beach! independently (whisper read) or with a partner.
Also pair them with children who need more support and have them read aloud or chorally.
Have children pair up to spell long e (ee, ea) words with the letters ee, ea, b, ch, d, f, g, m, n, r, s, sh, t, wh Children can reference the mini book or generate their own words.
Provide double-lined paper, and have them write words such as beach, sheep, whee, deep, sheep, green, and seat.
Have children brainstorm and write long e words with ee, ea, or ey spellings on double-lined paper.
Challenge children to spell twosyllable words with these long e vowel teams, such as seashell, backseat, beehive, beaver, and season.
Responsive Writing
Turn to pp. 36–37 of the Reading Response Journal. Review directions with children.
p. 36Have children finish the picture of the beach scene. Encourage them to draw things with names that have a long e sound spelled ee or ea. Have children use the word bank for support in labeling their picture.
p. 37Have children echo/choral read the text excerpt. Then have them circle the long e words spelled with ee or ea
Guide children to use the text excerpt for support in writing long e words to complete the sentences.
After children finish the beach scene with drawings and labels of long e words spelled ee or ea and other drawings, too, have them write a sentence describing the beach scene using words from the word bank.
Have children read the text excerpt with a partner. Then have them circle the long e words spelled with ee or ea
Have children use long e words to complete the sentences about Bree and Finley.
“Your teeth are green!” said Bree.
“Green?” asked Finley.
Finley drank a tall glass of sweet peach tea.
“Still green?” asked Finley.
“No, Finley,” said Bree.
“Bleat! Bleat” yelled Finley.
Finley drank a big jug of sweet cream.
“Are my teeth clean yet?” Finley asked. Write about Bree and Finley.
After children finish the beach scene with drawings and labels of long e words spelled ee, ea, and ey, have them write a story about a real or imagined day at the beach. Provide double-lined paper, as needed.
Have children whisper read the text excerpt. Then have them circle the long e words spelled with ee, ea, and ey
Have children use long e words to complete the sentences about Bree and Finley.
IF NEEDED
Multilingual Learner
Support
Partner multilingual learners with different English language proficiencies but the same home language to work together on the Reading Response Journal pages. If not possible, pair children with more fluent readers to encourage collaboration in generating long e words and thinking of how to respond.
Phonics and Word Work
Provide pairs or triads of children with a Letter Tiles Bag, and direct them to build words, based on their decoding and encoding ability. Write words on a whiteboard or sheet of paper as models for children to follow as they build words.
Have children build words for review.
short e: den, hen, men, pen, pet, get, bet, net, met, set, wet
long e: me, we, be
Have children build words with the primary skill in the lesson: long e spelled ee and ea. These are some words to get them started.
ee: sheep, queen, beef, green ea: eat, sea, tea, pea, leap, meal, deal
Have children build word chains by changing one or more letters with the pattern: een: seen, teen, green, queen eak: beak, leak, sneak, speak eal: deal, meal, seal, steal eam: seam, team, beam, cream, dream