Short Vowel Sounds: A

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Tell your students that you are going to do a call and response. You will call: Who let the A out? Have your students respond: /ă/ /ă/ /ă/ /ă/ /ă/.
• Ask the class to say words that begin with the letter A. For visual learners, draw pictures of the words on the board, and label them. Some great examples include: apple, alligator, and axe.
• Prompt students to list CVC words that are also on the Short A Sound worksheet, such as bat and hat.
• Instead of telling students that they are right or wrong, create audio cues. For example, if a student gets an answer right, play a clapping sound.

Guided Practice

• Write -ad on the board. Ask students to sound it out one letter at a time. For example, say the /ă/ sound, and then say the /d/ sound. Then, combine them.
• Ask your students for examples of words that end in -ad. Possible examples include mad, fad, and lad.
• Model how adding and changing the consonants at the beginning of a word can create other words. For example, explain that bad, mad, and dad have different meanings.
• Have the students come up with more words independently, and ask them to share their chosen words with the class.
• Keep the focus on the /ă/ sound at all times.
• Repeat these steps with -at.

Independent working time

• Pass out copies of the Short A Sound worksheet to your students.
• Tell your students to circle the objects that have the /ă/ sound.
• On the back of the worksheet, ask your students to draw five objects that have the /ă/ sound.
• Encourage your students to draw pictures that are different from the ones on the worksheet.