Letter clusters teens lesson plan

Vowel and Consonant clusters

Early starters and above Teens

Alphabet mini lessons for ESL teens teachers

Letter clusters phonics lessons

Alphabet a-z (uppercase)

These mini lessons focus on learning the phonetic sounds of clusters of letters. Students learn to [hide_on_uk]recognize[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]recognise[/hide_on_us], pronounce and write common clusters of letters.

These lessons are for Early starter level students and above. This is a mini lesson plan.

Members get accompanying flashcards and worksheets.

Materials:

Notes:

Use this mini-lesson plan within your main lesson for letter cluster phonics practice – teach 3 letter clusters each lesson.

Make sure your students have studied the lowercase alphabet letters mini-lessons before doing the letter clusters.

We strongly advise NOT dedicating a full lesson to letter clusters – we suggest including a 10-15-minute section each lesson for teaching and reviewing the clusters. Different clusters should be taught over a series of lessons and reviewed each lesson.

Suggested order of min-lessons:

LessonClustersCluster wordsAdditional cluster words
1oo /ʊ/
ee /i:/
ou /aʊ/
foot
bee
cloud
book, cook
green, queen
house, mouse
2th /θ/
sh /ʃ/
ch /tʃ/
three
sheep
chin
mouth, cloth
ship, brush
chips, chest
3 Reviewoo /ʊ/
ee /i:/
ou /aʊ/
th /θ/
sh /ʃ/
ch /tʃ/
foot
bee
cloud
three
sheep
chin
book, cook, hook
green, queen, teeth
house, mouse, shout
mouth, cloth, teeth
ship, brush, fish, shout
chips, chest, bench
4ai /eɪ/
oa /əʊ/
ea /iː/
train
goat
sea
snail, rain
soap, boat
leaf, tea
5er /ə(r)/
ar /ɑː(r)/
or /ɔː(r)/
river
car
corn
finger, farmer
star, shark
fork, horse
6 Reviewai /eɪ/
oa /əʊ/
ea /iː/
er /ə(r)/
ar /ɑː(r)/
or /ɔː(r)/
train
goat
sea
river
car
corn
snail, rain, nail
soap, boat, road
leaf, tea, peas
finger, farmer, letter
star, shark, arm
fork, horse, storm
7ue /u:/
ui /u:/
oi /ɔɪ/
glue
fruit
coin
blue, cue
juice, suit
toilet, soil
8oo /ʊ/
oo /u:/
th /θ/
th /ð/
foot
moon
three
mother
wood
spoon, boot
moth
clothes, weather

Mini-lesson procedure:

1. Review the letters clusters learned in previous lessons (lesson 2 “th sh ch” onwards)
Use your flashcards to quickly run through the letter clusters learned in previous lessons. This should be a quick run through, eliciting each letter, cluster sound and picture:

  1. Hold up the first letter cluster and ask, “What letters can you see?” – elicit the letters (e.g. “ou”)
  2. Then ask, “Is for?” – elicit the phonetic sound (e.g. “/aʊ/”)
  3. Finally, turn over the flashcard showing the picture and ask again, “Is for?” – elicit the word (e.g. “cloud”)
  4. Continue with the rest of the letter cluster flashcards

2. Introduce the letter clusters with flashcards
For the new letter clusters, follow this basic procedure. This section of the lesson should be fast paced and fun.

1) Hold up a letter cluster flashcard so all students can see it.

3) Elicit the letters on the card (e.g. “t” and “h”).

4) Teach the sound of the cluster (e.g. “t” “h” is for /θ/”).  Chorus again and check individually, paying special attention to difficult sounds and tongue/teeth position.

5) Provide an example of an object that begins with the letter.  Double-sided flashcards with the letter on one side and a picture on the other are great for this.  (e.g. “What’s this?” (elicit “t” “h”).  “And a is for…?” (elicit “/θ/”).  “And ‘/θ/’ is for … (turning the card over) “three”.  Chorus the word and check individually.

Therefore, a typical interaction for a single letter cluster (covering points 2-5 above) would be as follows:

Teacher: (showing a flashcard of the cluster th) “What letters are these?”
Students: “t and h”
T: “Good! t h together is /θ/
Ss: “/θ/”
T: “t h is for /θ/ .. /θ/ .. /θ/.  Repeat /θ/”
Ss: “/θ/”
T: “/θ/”
Ss: “/θ/”
T: “/θ/”
Ss: “/θ/”
T: “t h, is for /θ/, is for (turning the card over) three .. three .. three .. repeat three”
Ss: “three”
T: “three”
Ss: “three”
T: “three”
Ss: “three”
T: “Good! What’s this?” (showing “th”)
Ss: “/θ/”
T: “Is for?” (turning the card)
Ss: “three”
T: “Well done!”  (now asks individual students)

3. Check the 3 letter clusters
Do a quick final check of the 3 new clusters:

1) Hold up the first cluster and ask, “What’s this?” – elicit the sound (e.g. “/θ/”)
2) Turn over the flashcard showing the picture and ask again, “Is for?” – elicit the word (e.g. “three”)
3) Continue with the other letter clusters

4. Introduce 6 new words
Students will now learn some new words with the 3 clusters they have just learned.  Either print out or draw on the board pictures for the additional cluster words (see “Suggested order of min-lessons” at the top of this page).

First, we need to teach / elicit the words.  Bring everyone’s attention to first picture and teach / elicit the word.  Then chorus 3-5 times.  Repeat for all the pictures.

5. Test 6 new words
Can your students remember the new words?  If using printed pictures, slowly reveal each picture until a student shouts out the answer.  If drawing on the board, slowly start to draw the picture until someone guesses what it is and shouts out the work.

6. Read the words
Select a picture but don’t show it to your students.  Start writing the letters for that word on the board.  Get everyone to sound out each letter as you write it.  Help with clusters.  For example:

m o u t h

Finally, see if anyone can piece together all the sounds to make a word – and show the picture to confirm the correct answer (while giving lots of praise!).

7. Write the words on the board
Give a marker / chalk to a student and have them come to the board. Show him/her one word from the previous slides on a piece of paper, but don’t let the rest of the class see.

The student writes the word on the board and the rest of the students must shout out the word.

Repeat for the other words with different students.

8. Write the words on paper
Have everyone sit down with a pencil and piece of paper.  Show the pictures and get everyone to write down the words for the pictures.

When everyone has finished, check their answers and give corrections if necessary.

9. Do a letter clusters printing worksheet
Hold up the worksheet and model tracing and printing each letter.  Clearly show the directions of printing each letter and emphasize the importance of staying on the line.  Then draw a picture of the first word.

Have your students work on their worksheets.  Spend time with each student helping, asking what the letter is, and praising.

Mini lessons:

Alphabet a-z:

Letter clusters + phonics:

Letter clusters

Early reading:

Funny sentences

Reading short texts:

  1. I’m Tom
  2. Paula the penguin
  3. Superhero kids
  4. Rob the robot
  5. My bedroom
  6. Ronaldo is great
  7. Winola the witch
  8. A super tall building

Other lessons

Levels:

Beginner (A0-A1)
Elementary (A1-A2)
Pre-intermediate (A2-B1)
Intermediate (B1-B2)
Upper-int (B2-C1)
Advanced (C1-C2)

Found a mistake? Please let us know.

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