LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Fishing For vowels

This is an excellent hands-on activity in which the students actively participate in imagining a fishing trip. This lesson is designed to help students learn to recognize grade appropriate sight words. Students are expected to listen to a word and identify the short vowel sound heard.

A lesson plan for grade 1 English Language Arts

By Shannon Bradley

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

  • recognize and read grade appropriate sight words.
  • listen to a word and identify the short vowel sound heard.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

45 minutes

Materials/resources

  • Read-aloud book about fishing, such as:
  • “Pond” - large blue plastic table cloth
  • “Fishing Pole” - yard stick with about 2 1/2 feet of yarn taped to the end with a small magnet attached to the end of the yarn.
  • “Short Vowel Fish” - construction paper cut outs of fish with sight words written on one side and a paper clip on each fish.
  • brown paper bags labeled with short vowels.

Pre-activities

Before beginning this lesson, the students should be able to recognize and read grade appropriate sight words. Students should also be familiar with listening for different short vowel sounds.

Activities

  1. Conduct a read-aloud activity based on a book about fishing (see suggestions above).
  2. Discuss fishing.
    • “Has anyone ever gone fishing?”
    • “What do you fish for?”
    • “Have you ever caught anything when fishing?”
  3. Explain that today we are going to take an imaginary fishing trip. We will be fishing for a special kind of fish called “Short Vowel Fish” and I definitely think that everyone is going to catch a fish.
  4. Spread out the large blue plastic table cloth. Have students sit in a circle around the “pond.”
  5. Discuss the fact that in some places where people fish the water has to be stocked with fish. Explain what it means to stock a lake, pond, etc.
  6. Stock the “pond” with the special “Short Vowel Fish.” Make sure that all of the words are facing down.
  7. Each student takes a turn fishing in the pond. The student holds the fishing pole and catches a fish using the magnet on the end of the yarn and the paper clips on the fish.
  8. When the student catches the fish, he/she looks at the sight word and reads it out loud to the class. The other students raise their hands to identify the vowel heard in the word.
  9. The student with the fishing pole calls on a student to identify the vowel and tells if he/she is correct or not.
  10. If the volunteer has the correct answer, he/she comes to the fishing spot and puts the fish in the appropriate brown bag. That person then has a turn to fish.
  11. Repeat the process until everyone has had a turn to fish.

Assessment

Assessment of this activity will primarily be the observation of student’s responses when called upon.

The lesson can be extended to include a different kind of assessment, such as completing a short vowel quiz in which students are given a worksheet with different pictures of objects. The students can say the name of the picture and record the short vowel heard in the word.

Supplemental information

Comments

  1. Before beginning this lesson, please be sure to discuss safety issues with your students, such as not swinging the fishing pole around.
  2. When writing the sight words on the back of the fish, it is best to write in regular ink, rather than use any kind of marker, so that all of the children do not see the word when the fish is caught.
  3. This lesson can be easily adapted for any grade level and just about any skill. Anything can be written on the fish.
  4. When the students are finished fishing, the bags with the words separated by vowels can be used in a variety of activities such as making sentences with them, writing, etc.

North Carolina curriculum alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 1

  • Goal 1: The learner will develop and apply enabling strategies and skills to read and write.
    • Objective 1.01: Develop phonemic awareness and demonstrate knowledge of alphabetic principle:
      • count syllables in a word.
      • blend the phonemes of one-syllable words.
      • segment the phonemes of one-syllable words.
      • change the beginning, middle, and ending sounds to produce new words.
      • create and state a series of rhyming words that may include consonant blends (e.g., flag, brag).
    • Objective 1.02: Demonstrate decoding and word recognition strategies and skills:
      • generate the sounds from all the letters and appropriate letter patterns which should include consonant blends and long and short vowel patterns.
      • use phonics knowledge of sound-letter relationships to decode regular one-syllable words when reading words and text.
      • recognize many high frequency and/or common irregularly spelled words in text (e.g., have said, where, two).
      • read compound words and contractions.
      • read inflectional forms (e.g., -s, -ed, -ing) and root words (e.g., looks, looked, looking).
      • read appropriate word families.

  • Common Core State Standards

    • English Language Arts (2010)

      • Reading: Foundational Skills

        • Grade 1
          • 1.RFS.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes). 1.RFS.2.1 Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words. 1.RFS.2.2 Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including...
          • 1.RFS.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. 1.RFS.3.1 Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs (two letters that represent one sound). 1.RFS.3.2 Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words....