Say: In order to become great readers, we need to the learn the code that tells us how to say certain words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with e, like bed, so today we are going to learn about long E and the double e signal that is used to make E say its name. When I say /E/ I think of a person saying “Eeeeek” because they are scared by a sheep. [Show graphic image.]

Say: Before we learn the spelling of /E/, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for /E/ in words, I hear e say its name /E/ and I show it with my teeth like this (point to teeth and make the vocal sound for /E/). Let’s listen for /E/ in some words. I’ll show you first: beep. I heard e say its name and I felt my mouth open and show my teeth (point to teeth). There is a long E in beep. Now I’m going to see if it’s in jet. Hmm, I didn’t hear the e say its name and my mouth didn’t open and show my teeth. Now you try. If you hear /E/ say, “Eek, a sheep!” If you don’t hear /E/ say, “That’s not it.” Is it in bee, dog, key, book, cheek, bear, sheep? [Have children point to their exposed teeth when they hear /E/ say its name.] 

Say; Now let’s look at the spelling of /E/ that we’ll learn today. One way to spell /E/ is with two letter e’s right next to each other. [Write ee on the board.] There might be consonants before or after the two e’s in the word. What if I want to spell the word speech? “The girl gave a speech to her class on the importance of recycling.” To spell speech in the letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /s/ /p/ /ee/ /ch/. I need four boxes. I heard the /E/ just before the /ch/ so I’m going to put two e’s in the 3rd box. The word stars with /s/, that’s easy; I need an s. Now it gets a little tricky so I’m going to say it slowly, /s/ /p/ /E/ /ch/. I think I heard /p/ so I’ll put a p right after the s. I have one empty box now. [Point to letter in boxes when stretching out the word: /s/ /p/ /E/ /ch/.] The missing one is /ch/. So now we have /s/ /p/ /E/ /ch/, speech!

Say: Now it’s your turn to spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out easy with two boxes for bee. “The bee landed on the flower.” What should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second box? What about the double e, did you remember to put it into one box? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress.] You’ll need three letterboxes for the next word. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Listen for the beginning sound that goes in the first box. Then listen for /E/ and don’t forget to put two e’s in the same box. Here’s the word: jeep. “The two girls drove the jeep to the grocery store.” [Allow children to spell words.] Time to check your work. Watch how I spell it in my letterboxes on the board: j – e – e – p and see if you’ve spelled it the same way. Let’s try another word with three boxes: tree, “the cat climbed to the top of the tree.” [Have a volunteer spell it in the letterbox on the front board for children to check their work. Repeat this step for each new word.] Next word. Listen to see if this word has /E/ in it before you spell it: neck; “the boy got a sunburn on the back of his neck when he went to the beach.” Did you need the double e? Why not? Right, because we don’t hear e say its name. We spell it with our short vowel e. [Volunteer spells it on the front board.] Did you remember to spell /k/ with a ck? Now let’s try four letterboxes: green; “A green bird landed on the bird bath.” 

Say: Now I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled, but first I’ll show you how I would read a tough word. [Display poster with speech on the top and model reading the word.] First, I see our double e in the middle; that’s my signal that the e will say its name. I’m going to use a cover-up to get the first part. [Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend with the vowel.] /s/ /p/ = /sp/. Now I’m going to blend that with /E/ = /spE/. Now all I need is the end, /ch/ = /spEch/. Speech; that’s it. Now it’s your turn, everyone together. [Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read on word on the list until everyone has had a turn.] 

Say: You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /E/: ee. Now we are going to read a book called The Bee and the Flea. This is a story about a bee named Bea and a flee named Lee. Lee isn’t like most fleas. He likes to drink nectar out of roses. One day Lee meets a bee named Bea who also likes to eat nectar and wants to live in the hive with her. Will the bee queen let Lee live in the hive? Let’s pair up and take turns reading The Bea and the Flea to find out if Lee will get to live in the hive. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages while teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads The Bee and the Flea aloud together and stops between page turns to discuss the plot.]

Say: That was a fun story. Did Lee get to live in the hive? Right, the queen let Lee live in the hive as long as he kept the hive clean. How did Lee keep it clean? Right, he swept he floor three times a day. Before we finish up with our lesson about one way to spell /E/ = ee, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we have some words missing. Your job is to look in the box of word choices and decide which ee word fits best to make sense in the sentence. Reread your answers to see if they make sense. [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]