top of page
This site was designed with the
.com
website builder. Create your website today.Start Now
source.gif

Icky! Iggy is Sticky!

Rationale: 

This lesson teaches students to recognize the short vowel correspondence i = / i /. As beginning readers, it is important to give the students ways to connect the grapheme to the phoneme. Students will learn to recognize / i / in oral language by learning a meaningful representation (Icky! Iggy is sticky!), spelling words containing i, and by recognizing i = / i / in words. Students will practice spelling the / i / sound with letterboxes and identify the /  i/ sound in the decodable book Liz is Six written by Shelia Cushman. 

 

Materials: 

  •  Liz is Six by Shelia Cushman (Educational insights, 1990)

  • Chalkboard/chalk

  • Picture of ‘Icky! Iggy is sticky!’ (sheep covered in slime) 

  • Poster with stick at the top

  • Cover-up critter

  • White paper

  • Markers/crayons

  • Chart with "Six thick thistle sticks"

  • Letterboxes and letters

  • Letters needed:  r, a, c, k, p, i, t, e, d, w, n, l, s, m, b

​

Procedures:

1. To begin, introduce the lesson by showing students the picture of Oggy the sheep with the ‘Icky! It’s Sticky!’ gunk on his coat. Say: “We are going to learn about short i and the sound / i / it makes when it is in words by itself. Have you ever gotten anything really sticky on your shoes or hands? I know when I get something sticky on me I say, ‘Icky! It’s Sticky!’ [Model the hand gesture while saying this]”. For more practice, you can say the tongue tickler: “Six thick thistle sticks”. Ask students to say it along with you the second time. Tell the students to stretch out the / i / in every word. 

 

2.  Say: “Before we learn about the spelling of / i /, we need to listen for it in some words. When I listen for / i / in words, my lips make a little stretched out smile and my cheeks are pinched [Make vocal gestures for / i /]. I’ll show you first: Tick. I heard ‘icky, it’s sticky’ / i / sound. I felt my lips make a stretched-out smile and my cheeks pinched. Now I’m going to see if it’s in march. Hmm, I didn’t hear the ‘icky, it’s sticky’ sound. My mouth didn’t make a stretched-out smile. Now you try. If you hear / i / say, “Icky! It’s sticky!” If you don’t hear / i / say, “I don’t hear it” [Have children stretch out their lips when they hear the icky sticky / i /]. Is it in sit, pat, lips, coat, stick, or flower?”.

 

3. Say: “Now, we're going to try spelling some words with our ‘icky, it’s sticky’ / i / sound. We will be spelling these words using our letterboxes and our letter tiles. I am going to spell the word "slick". If I walk on the tile with wet feet, the floor is very slick. To spell slick in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I will stretch it out and count: / s / / l / / i / / ck /. I need four boxes. I heard that / i / just before the / k / so I’m going to put an i in the third box. The / i / is the ‘icky, it’s sticky’ sound! SSS; that is the ‘s’ sound, so I know to put a ‘s’ in my first square. Sllllick. Next, I hear the ‘lll’ sound. That is the sound an ‘l’ makes, so I know to put an t in the next box. Now let’s say it slowly. Sslliiick. Stick! Now you're going to try it [Point to letters in boxes when stretching out the word: / s / / l / / i / / ck /].”

 

4. Say: “Now, I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. Lets try the word ‘Clink!’ How many boxes do we need? [Wait on class’s response] Which letter goes first? [Wait on class’s response] Second box? [Wait on class’s response] Third box? [Wait on class’s response] Fourth box? [Wait on class’s response] Okay, and for the last box we need.. [Wait on class’s response] Great job guys! Now, you will only need three boxes. How would we spell the word ‘bit’? As in, I only have a bit of cleaning left to do.” [Observe children spelling the word]. “Now, let's check while I spell my word b-i-t. Did you spell it the same way I did? Great job! What about the word sticky? You will need five boxes for this word.” [Observe children spelling the word]. “Woah! You are pros!”

 

5. Say: “Now, I am going to let you read the words you have spelled, but first I will show you how I would read a tough word.” [Display poster with brick on the top and model reading the word]. “I am going to start with the i; that part says / i /. Now I’m going to use a cover-up critter to get the first part. / b / / r / = / br /. Now, I am going to put the beginning letters with it: b-r-i, briii. Now, I will put the chunk together with the last sound. Brick. Brick! Like the brick on the house. Now, it’s your turn!” [Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn].

 

6. Say: “You’ve done an excellent job reading words with our new spelling for / i /. Let’s read Liz is Six by Shelia Cushman. Book-talk: In this book, a young girl named Liz has a birthday party. She gets a mitt and wants to play baseball with her friends. Her friend the pig bats first, and hits the ball hard! Will Liz be able to catch it? How will Liz hit the ball? Who do you think will win the game?” [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while the teacher walks around the room monitoring progress. After paired reading, the class rereads the story aloud together, and stops between page turns to discuss the plot]. Remind students to use their cover critters when they come to a word they do not know. Next, tell them to cross check their reading to make sure the sentence makes sense. If further assistance is needed, let the children know to come to you for help.  

 

7. To assess students, ask follow-up questions: “That was a fun story! Before we finish up our lesson, I want to see how you can solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, we will pick a word that’s closest to the meaning of the underlined word. You should use the context clues in the sentence to find the right answer.  When you have completed the worksheet, please bring it to my desk with your name on it.” [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress].

​

Resources:

bottom of page