Estella Escajeda: Now I'm going to give you a phrase or a sentence.

Narrator: Teacher Estella Escajeda's third graders are in the middle of a phonics lesson about the difference between short 'i' and short 'e'. They're writing phrases and sentences, which helps them integrate their new knowledge with existing knowledge about other spelling patterns.

Estella Escajeda: I'm going to give you a phrase or a sentence. What is the difference between a phrase and a sentence? Maritza?

Maritza: [She answers the question in Spanish.]

Estella Escajeda: So, a phrase is shorter, right? And a sentence is longer, right? Because a sentence is what? A complete thought. It's a complete thought. It's either going to have a punctuation at the end, it's going to be a question mark, a period, or exclamation mark. So, that's the difference, okay? I'm going to give you a phrase and then I'm going to give you a sentence. So, the first phrase I'm going to give you is "not yet." Say "not yet" ...

Students: "not yet" ...

Estella Escajeda: Let's count how many words ...

Students: "not," "yet" ... two ...

Estella Escajeda: Let me see your boards. The check for spelling. Let's check for spelling.

Students: Notice how Ms. Escajeda is able to do a quick assessment of every student when they hold up their boards, and she encourages them to check for accuracy.

Estella Escajeda: So let's write "not" ...

Students: 'n', 'o', 't' ...

Estella Escajeda: And then "yet."

Students: Space ... 'y, 'e', 't' ...

Estella Escajeda: What does "yet" have? Sebasatian?

Sebastian: It's short ...

Estella Escajeda: It's the short 'e'. The next phrase I'm going to give you is "got ten."

Students: "got," "ten" ... two ...

Estella Escajeda: Good job. Let me see. Let me see your boards. Let's check for spelling. I want to check for spelling. Okay. Let's spell "got ten."

Students: 'g', 'o', 't', space, 't', 'e', 'n' ...

Estella Escajeda: What do we notice in the word "ten"? What do we see? What do we hear?

Student: In "ten,' there's the long 'e' ...

Estella Escajeda: Is it the long 'e' or is it the short 'e'?

Students: The short. 'e'.

Estella Escajeda: The short 'e'. How do you say "ten"? Say "ten" ...

Students: "ten" ... 't', 'e', 'n' ... "ten" ...

Estella Escajeda: Good job. So our last phrase that we're going to write is "Kim's got a wig." Wig ... fake hair. Have you ever guys ever seen a wig?

Students: Yes.

Estella Escajeda: "Kim's got a wig."

Narrator: As they write dictated sentences, the third graders are building up automaticity and spelling. They're also getting practice and conventions of sentence structure and a little vocabulary work.

Estella Escajeda: What do we notice about Kim? What does it have? Joseline?

Joseline: It has the short 'i'.

Estella Escajeda: What sound does the short 'i' ..

Students: /ĭ/ ...

Estella Escajeda: What do we notice about wig, Freddy?

Freddy: That it has a short 'i' ...

Estella Escajeda: Short 'i'. And what letter are we using in the word wig?

Students: 'i' ...

Estella Escajeda: 'i' ... So what sound does 'i' make?

Students: /ĭ/ ...

Narrator: After this challenging work of writing dictated phrases and sentences, the next step in their lesson is reading.

Estella Escajeda: Good job.

Narrator: If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Loma Linda Elementary School, Vado Elementary School, the Gadsden Independent School District, and the New Mexico Public Education Department. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale, the American Federation of Teachers, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C., The Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.

Estella Escajeda: So, everybody get your magical popsicle sticks. You're going to need your magical popsicle sticks to follow along.

Narrator: In this part of Esella Escajeda's lesson on the short 'e' and short 'i' vowel sounds, students now will read phrases . They're building on the spelling they did earlier in the lesson. Scaffolding learning in this way develops accuracy and supports fluency.

Estella Escajeda: We're going to read these phrases three times, okay? So, these are phrases, they're not sentences, remember they're phrases. We're going to read it three times. The first time we're going to read it to be sure we read the word correctly. The second time, we're going to make sure we read it at a good speed — not too fast and

Students: ... not too slow.

Estella Escajeda: Right? ... Not too slow. And then the third time, we're going to read it, we're going to make sure that what we read matches what the words are trying to tell us. Are we ready? Okay, so we're going to go across, okay? The first one is "in the bed."

Students: "in the bed" ..."the big net" ... "is not wet" ...

Narrator: Ms. Escajeda leads her third graders in guided oral reading, which helps students with accuracy, speed, and expression — or fluent reading. It's a bridge between word recognition and reading comprehension.

Ms. Escajeda and students: "a red pen" ...

Estella Escajeda: Good job. How do you think we did?

Students: Good ...

Estella Escajeda: I think we did good.

Narrator: If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Loma Linda Elementary School, Vado Elementary School, the Gadsden Independent School District, and the New Mexico Public Education Department. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale, the American Federation of Teachers, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C., The Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.