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 Goals:

• Students will recognize words ending with -le.
• Students will discriminate between and decode words in the CVCle and CVCCle patterns.

Materials:

• Opaque bag or basket
• Several small household items, including candle, ladle, picture of a table, marble, pickle, buckle, bottle, cable, and several items whose names do not end with -le or the /l/ sound.
• Self adhesive name tags (one per student)
• Marker
• Whiteboard/marker or chalkboard/chalk and eraser.  Be sure there are two colors to write with.

Preparation:

• Write one nonsense word on each tag that ends with -le, such as bipple, fackle, taple, mible, diggle, vinkle, pangle, and fugle.  Make approximately half of the words in the CVCle pattern and half CVCCle constructions.

Procedure:

• Tell the students that they will be learning about an important spelling pattern.  Ask them to think of the names of each item as you pull it from the bag.  Be sure they use the -le name if the item is an -le item.  Write the name of each item on the board. 
• Allow volunteers to come forward to circle the -le and underline the vowel sound that comes in the first syllable.
• Have the students generate additional -le words.  Write them on the board.  Use one color for CVCle words (with long vowels in the first syllable) and another color for CVCCle words (short vowel in the first syllable).  When you have 10-15 examples of each, ask for student speculation about why the words are in different colors.  If necessary, help them to the conclusion that the words are sorted by the type of vowel sound in the first syllable.
• Ask students what color you should use to write additional -le words of your choice.  Use words with mixed patterns.
• Discuss the patterns that you notice.  The children need to conclude that the words with a single consonant before the -le will have a long vowel sound and words with two consonants before the -le will have a short vowel sound.

Evaluation:

• Pass out stickers with nonsense -le words on them.  Have the students sort themselves according to whether the vowel in the first syllable of their nonsense word would be long or short.

Interested in worksheets to use with this lesson?  Please Contact Me for more information and free samples.

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