The Elementary Spelling Book, being an Improvement on the American Spelling Book · Nos. 57–59 · Part 5: Vowel pairs and light syllables
35. More vowel pairs: year, fair, saint, dew, flew
Goal: Your child reads and spells words with ea, ai, oa before r, and words ending in ew.
You'll need
- The book, open to this table
- A slate, small whiteboard, or paper and pencil
What's in the book
No. 57: mourn, grown, heap, fear, spear, oar, year, rear, leap. No. 58: near, tear, bier, air, your, peat, wait, fair, tour. No. 59: float, trait, saint, east, waist, clew, yew, beast, dew, flew, crew, with the note that "ew, in the starred words, is pronounced like oo; in the other words, like ū." Sentences follow on this page and the next, such as "Spiders spin webs to catch flies."
The lesson, step by step
The pattern
More vowel pairs. Before r they change a little: fear, year, near; air, fair. And ew sounds either like "oo" (flew, crew) or like "yoo" (dew). The book stars the words where ew says oo.
Read the table aloud
Read the table aloud together, a column at a time. You say a word, your child says it back while pointing to it. Then your child reads a column alone. Some of the words:
mourn, grown, heap, fear, spear, year
near, tear, air, your, wait, fair
float, saint, east, beast, dew, flew, crew
Spell aloud
Now the old way: your child looks at a word, then spells it aloud and says it.
Sayy, e, a, r, year.
Go down a column like this. Then cover the column, say a word, and have your child spell it aloud without looking.
Read the sentences
Read the sentences on this page and the next together. Some of them:
Paper is made of linen and cotton rags.
Spiders spin webs to catch flies.
A dog can leap over a fence.
Dictation
Say each word, use it in a short sentence of your own, and say it again. Your child writes it. Try these: heap, fear, year, near, fair, wait, east, flew.
Check together against the book. Any word that came out wrong goes on a card for tomorrow.
Review
Finish with the cards from earlier days: your child reads and spells each one. Put a card away after three right days in a row.
Afterwards
There are many sentences with these tables (they fill most of the next page). Read a few each day this week.