Instructional Project:Onsets, Rimes, and

Basic Phonic PatternsREED 663Dr. Pitcher

Lindsey ShieldsDecember 7, 2010

What are phonics, onsets, & rimes?

Phonics instruction…. Provides a “way of teaching reading and spelling that stresses

symbol-sound relationships” (Rasinski & Padak, 2008, p. 14).

Onsets are…. The consonants that come before the first vowel in a word.

Rimes are… The vowel and remainder of the word that comes after a

consonant, consonant diagraph, or consonant blend (Cunningham, 2009).

The purpose was to teach skills associated with onsets, rimes, and basic phonic patterns.The subjects of this project were a group of 4 students in first grade at Seven Oaks Elementary School in Anne Arundel County. I met with these 4 students five times for 15-20 minute lessons. During each session, students were taught about onsets, rimes, and phonic patterns through blending and segmenting, a Making words lesson, group practice, and through the use of rhyming texts.

Introduction

Method of Instruction

I used whole group instruction and independent work time.I created and modified lessons that were games to engage and appeal to the students.I used lesson ideas, such as Making Words and Rounding Up Rhymes, from Phonics They Use: Words for Reading

and Writing by Patricia M. Cunningham (2009). Rhyming texts were integrated into the final lesson using the book Parts by Tedd Arnold (1997) and selections from A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein (1981).

Lesson One: What are onsets and rimes?

I began by asking the students to read and chorally spell the word job with me. Then I asked the students to think of a word that rhymes with job in their heads. Next, the students shared their rhyming words with the group one at a time. I recorded their words on a piece of poster paper. Then I asked the students how they knew a word that rhymes with job. Some of the responses included that they thought of the word job and replaced the first letter with another letter to make a new word. Their responses support that the students are aware of rhyming.

Lesson One: What are onsets and rimes?

Next, I introduced the concepts of onset and rime. We looked at the list of words we created and decided which parts of the words were onsets and which were the rimes. Finally, I had the students identify the onset and rime of five different words. We discussed each part and the students explained how they decided on their answer.

Lesson Two: Word Families

The students were asked to remind the group what we did the previous lesson. We discussed what an onset and rime are using examples.Then the students were given a piece of paper which we folded into four squares. I told the students that each square would hold a word that rhymes with my special word. The students would have a few minutes to think and write four words in the boxes that rhyme with my special word. The word written on the index card was cat.

Lesson Two: Word Families

After a few minutes, we went in a circle sharing one rhyming word at a time as I recorded the words on a list. The students continued until they had shared all their words.I asked the students how they knew which words rhymed with the word cat. The students said they replaced the beginning of the word while thinking of the part of the word at.

Lesson Two:Word Families

The students did not explicitly say they used the rime of the word to find words that rhymed.

I asked them what that part of the word is called and what the beginning part of the word was called, as well. The students thought for a few moments, but after some prompting they remembered the specific names of onset and rime.

Lesson Three: Making WordsDuring this lesson, I used a Making Words activity (Cunningham, 2009). The Making Word activity allows students to blend and segment words. Students manipulate the onsets and rimes of words through the use of letter cut-outs, as well.As a group, we reviewed the terms onset and rime from the previous lessons. We also discussed how we know which words rhyme with one another.To begin the lesson, each student received a bag of the same five letters. I had the students lay the letters out on the table right-side-up.

Lesson Three: Making Words

Next, I prompted the students using six instructions for a new word and six sentences using that word. The final prompt instructed the students to decode the secret word.

After the students spelled each word, I asked one or two students what they did with their letters. Then I would place an index card with the correct word on the table in descending order so the students could compare their words.

Once we finished the Making Words activity, I asked the students what parts of the words they changed to make new words. The students responded that they changed the beginning and ends of the words. With some prompting the students labeled those word parts as the onset and rime of the words.

Making Words Activity

“Use 3 letters to spell the word pen. I use a pen to write in my journal.”

“Change the first letter in pen to spell ten. My mother has ten flower pots in our house.”

“Change the first and last letter in ten to spell pet. My best friend just got a new pet kitten.”

“Add a letter to the word pet to spell pets. My pets

love to play together!”

“Take two letters away from the word pets and add two letters to spell sent. You will have to move the letters around differently. I sent my grandma a box of cookies for her birthday.”

“I have just one word left. It is the secret word you can make with all your letters. Take a minute to think about what that word could be.”

The secret word is spent.

Lesson Four: Sorting Words into Patterns

At the beginning of the lesson, I had students activate their prior knowledge by turning to a partner to discuss what we did in the previous lesson. Then the students shared with the whole group.For this lesson I used the activity Sorting the Words into Patterns from Phonics They Use: Words for Reading and Writing (Cunningham, 2009). Using words on index cards from the Making Words activity, I randomly placed the cards on the table. I asked the students how we made the words, in which they responded that we changed the letters to make new words. In some of the words we changed the onset, in others we changed the rimes, and sometimes we changed both!

Lesson Four: Sorting Words into Patterns

As I pointed to each word we read the word out loud and spelled it together.

In partners, I gave each pair a set of the words. Each pair had to sort the words based on rhyme. I modeled how to place the words into groups to avoid confusion.

The pairs chose different spots in the room to work. As the students sorted I observed their methods and made suggestions when necessary.

Lesson Four:Sorting Words into Patterns

Multiple times the students and I would walk through reading, rereading, and spelling words to compare their onsets and rimes. Thinking out loud seemed to help the students hear and see specific word families.

We regrouped to share the students’ findings. When the students were confused whether two words rhymed, we read the words out loud and spelled them together. We then identified the rime to decide if they matched.

Lesson Five: Rounding Up Rhymes

During this lesson I used the Rounding Up Rhymes activity from Phonics They Use:

Words for Reading and Writing

(Cunningham, 2009). As a read aloud, I read Parts by Tedd Arnold (1997). Before reading, I asked the group to listen carefully for words that rhyme. If a student hears two or more words that rhyme, they should put their hands on their heads to notify the teacher. The student will say the words they noticed and we will record the rhymes on index cards.

Lesson Five: Rounding Up Rhymes

After reading, we reread the rhymes to discuss and identify rimes, or word families. We would keep the words with the same rime and discard the words with different rimes.

The students discussed which words had the same rimes by spelling the words and comparing the rimes of different words. The group successfully identified and sorted the rhyming words in relation to the similar rimes.

As a treat, I shared a few poems from Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic (1981). The students noticed many rhyming words and became excited every time they heard a rhyme to share.

So…what is an onset and a rime?

I asked the students to explain what an onset and rime are at the end of our last lesson. Jai responded, “An onset is the letter at the beginning of the word.

It comes before the a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y!” Kalia said, “The onset is the first part of the word before the

vowel. The rime is the rest of the word.” Kiara told the group, “The first letters are the onset and the rest

of the letters are the rime.” (I asked her how does she know where the rime begins.) She responded, “The rime starts with the vowel.”

Jordan explained, “The rime is the part that rhymes! The onset is the beginning of the word. It comes before the vowel.”

Reflection

The instructional project taught me that allowing students to learn new knowledge occurs through multiple forms of instruction and practice. Especially in whole classes, students need a variety of ways to obtain new knowledge since every person learns differently.

I learned that modeling for students is important because it further explains the task or skill at hand. Students need clarification through modeling, otherwise they may completely miss the objective of the activity.

Reflection ContinuedStudents need consistent discussion and practice to decipher between onsets and rimes, as well as rimes and rhymes. They can be very confusing concepts!

By gradually releasing responsibility to the students, they were able to gain confidence of the concepts and could begin to incorporate critical thinking skills while identifying onsets and rimes. They were able to identify both the onset and rime of multiple words, as well as notice words that rhyme and that are in the same word family by the last lesson.

In the future, I would include more texts such as poetry from Shel Silverstein or other poetry books. Many books can be utilized in a phonics lesson as long as the students are aware of the goal of the lesson.

RelevanceI shared my instructional project with Lauren Mykins. She is a kindergarten teacher in Fairport, New York. Her suggestions are included in the following email. The suggestion I find most useful is to add assessment to have students recall what they have learned and to inform further instruction.

ResourcesArnold, T. (1997). Parts. New York, NY: Penguin Group. Cunningham, P.M. (2009). Phonics they use: Words for reading and writing (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. Rasinski, T.V., & Padak, N.D. (2008). From phonics to fluency: Effective teaching of decoding and reading fluency in the elementary school (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.Silverstein, S. (1981). A light in the attic. New York, NY:

Scholastic Inc.