Spelling Words with Short ‘i’ and Short ‘e’

Estella Escajeda: Are you guys ready to learn? Yes! We're all ready to learn, right?

Narrator: Estella Escajeda is about to guide her third graders through dictation. It's the spelling portion of her phonics lesson on the difference between short 'i' and short 'e'. They begin with individual words.

Estella Escajeda: I'm going to give you a word, you repeat the word, and then we're going to segment it into individual phonemes. Okay? Are we ready? The first word is met. Say met.

Students: "met" ... /m/, /ĕ/, /t/ ... met ...

Estella Escajeda: What is the first letter in met?

Students: /m/ ... /ĕ/, /t/ ...

Estella Escajeda: Good job.

Narrator: Once they identified each phoneme, they matched letters to the sounds, allowing them to spell the word.

Estella Escajeda: Our next word is going to be bet. Say bet.

Students: bet ... /b/, /ĕ/, /t/ ... bet ...

Narrator: Ms. Escajeda has created routines that allow them to quickly add new words. She checks for accuracy as they go, making sure they get the vowel sounds right.

Estella Escajeda: Our next word is going to be bit.

Students: /b/, /ĭ/, /t/ ... bit ...

Estella Escajeda: So what is our new vowel now?

Students: 'i'

Estella Escajeda: How does 'i' sound?

Students: /ĭ/ ...

Estella Escajeda: Say bit ...

Students: bit ...

Estella Escajeda: Good job.

Narrator: Now they're ready to move on to writing phrases and sentences that have words with short 'i' and short 'e'.

Estella Escajeda: You did wonderful. Kiss Your Brains. 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.