(bright guitar music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (bright upbeat music) - Yes, yes, yes, I am ready to go find some gold but I have to go right now.

Okay, bye.

Hey, welcome back to Discovery Ranch.

My name is Mr. Dawson and I'm here to take you on discoveries so that you can learn how to read and write.

Join me here each day so you can learn something new.

By the way don't forget that if you will write me a letter telling me what you learned this week I will send you an activity book.

I've sent so many of these out.

It's so fun to send them out and you two could get one.

Just write me a letter today.

Let's get started.

Yesterday, we started talking about the letter "a".

This is a vowel.

There's five of them.

Do you remember them from long ago?

A, e, i, o, u.

Today we're only talking about "a" and why is "a" so, our vowel so important?

Because they can do something special.

These letters in kindergarten have two phonemes.

That's right.

The usual phoneme is a, apple, ah.

Ah is for a.

But then we started talking about yesterday how a can also say its name.

Now it's most happy when it says its sound, ah, but when it needs to, it will say its name.

And these are all the clues that you'll see in reading that tell you when a is gonna say a instead of ah.

So it could be an a, it could be a "a" and a "i" just like in "train".

It could be an "a" and a "y" just like in "day".

It can be an "a" blank "e" and that's the one we've been studying about, the "a" blank 'e".

In fact, when we do our story today we're gonna look for some more of those.

We didn't have a lot of time yesterday left so we didn't get to it really deep.

Hopefully we will today.

And then there's e and a and then there's e and i.

All of these, when you see them in a book are clues that you're going to be saying a instead of just ah.

Well, let's take a look at some pictures.

That's what we should do.

I have some pictures here and I want you to find the ones that have the a sound.

Are you ready?

Let me see if I have a different color.

I think I'm gonna use this one, the purple one.

So let's look at the pictures and then you tell me which one is going to have the a sound?

Which one has the a sound?

You ready?

This is cake.

Did you hear an a sound in there?

K. A-k.

Yes, this one had the a sound.

I'm gonna put the a, and do you remember from a long ago I put a line on top of it and that kind of gives you the clue that it says a instead of ah.

Let's look at this next one.

Vase, vase.

Did you hear an a sound on that one?

Vvv-aaa-se.

Vv-aa..

Yes.

So I'm gonna put the long a there and then I put... And it's like, what I've been telling my kids is that the line just says he's not happy or sad when he says a, it'll just do it.

Let's take a look at the next one.

Son, son, Sss-aaaa... No, that has o.

We're looking for the pictures that have a.

Let's take a look at the next one.

Pen, pen.

What's that middle phoneme?

Does it have the a sound?

P-a-a... Nope, doesn't have it.

We're moving along.

This is great.

How about this one?

That's the word "gate".

What is that middle phoneme?

G-aaa-te.

Ooh, yes, a.

A is the long sound for a.

How about this one?

Game.

What's that middle sound?

G-aa-me.

G-a...

Yes.

That one has the long a sound.

Wow, you guys are getting these so quickly.

Let's look at this one.

Tape, tape.

T-a-pe.

What was the middle sound?

A.

A, yes.

There is a lot of a words in here.

Ooh, what's this one?

This is jam.

Can you say "Jam"?

Let's sound it out.

J-a-m. What was that middle sound?

Ah, ah is for a but it's not the long a, it's the short a.

It's saying it's sound and not as name so we don't want that one.

Let's look at this last one, lake.

You're ready?

L-a-ke.

What was the middle sound?

L-a-a...

Yes, a.

And there you go.

A, that's a long vowel sound.

The a is saying its name.

Great job.

Oh my goodness.

We did such a great job on that one.

That is for sure.

All right, here we go.

Here we go.

You know what I wanna do next?

It's time for daily phoneme make awareness.

And what have we been talking about?

Yesterday professor Duesenberg taught us how to add a phoneme to a word.

So I thought I'm gonna try it myself.

Are you ready to help me?

Well, here's my word.

Help me sound it out.

L-o-t. Let's blend it.

Lll-ooo-t, looot, lot.

What's the word?

Lot.

Now I'm going to add a phoneme just like he did but I'm gonna add it to the front.

Let's see if we can say the word.

So I have "lot" and I'm gonna put a "p" in the front.

Do you see that?

Now I have to still say "lot" when I do it.

So here I go, you ready?

Plooot, plooot, plot.

Ah, we did it.

Oh, wow, we did it.

Let's do another one, you ready?

We're still keeping that word "lot".

We're still keeping "lot".

Now I'm gonna put a different phoneme on the front.

Are you ready?

Here we go.

I'm gonna put a "s" on the front.

Now what does it say?

Let's blend it.

Are you ready?

Sssssloooot, sslooot, slot.

We did it.

All right, slot.

Oh, that is so fun to do those.

That is so fun.

Well, we better stop there.

I might get lost doing that.

All very easy.

That was so much fun.

Oh my goodness.

But what we need to do now is talk about sight words.

Let's talk about sight words.

Looking right over here.

Let's look at our sight words.

Do you remember what they are?

Here they are.

What is this word?

Right, it's the word "this".

And what is this one?

"What".

"This" and "what".

How do you spell "what"?

W-H-A-T. And how do you spell "this"?

T-H-I-S.

Remember, if you can put these in your brain and keep them there, when you see them in a book, you'll be able to read them and if somebody asks you to write them you'll say, "No problem, I can do it."

Well, the next thing I wanna talk about is verbs.

Verbs are action words that tell what is happening in a sentence.

And we're talking about how verbs can tell when the action happens.

And yesterday I talked to you about when it happens now and when it happened in the past but now I wanna talk to you about what happens if it happens in the future.

Oh my gosh, if it's gonna happen like tomorrow.

What happens if it's gonna happen tomorrow?

Well, look at my sentence, this first one, and you'll see it.

It says, "I will ride the bus."

Where is the word that gives you a clue when you're going to do it and that it's gonna happen like maybe tomorrow?

Yes, it's the word "will".

When you see the word "will" that gives you the clue that it's not gonna happen now, it didn't happen yesterday, it's gonna happen sometime in the future.

I will ride the bus.

When?

Tomorrow.

Here's another one but it's a "Fill in the blank."

Brixton will, there's my clue word, Brixton will -_-_-_-_-_ his mom.

Okay, here we go.

I have three words that we could put in there.

I could put the word "leaf".

I could put the word, I put it in there.

I could put "leaf".

I could put "hug" or I could put "cry".

Which one do you think would fit best?

Which one, "cry", "hug", or "leaf"?

Right, "leaf" won't work because that's a noun.

Brixton will leaf his mom.

No, that's a noun.

So that one definitely wouldn't work.

Let's try this one, "cry".

Brixton will cry his mom.

Well, "cry" is a verb but it doesn't quite fit, does it?

Okay, let's try this last one.

Brixton will hug his mom.

Brixton will hug his mom.

Now that made sense.

Brixton will hug his mom, and will means it's gonna happen in the...

I don't know when but it's going to happen sometime in the future.

Will is telling me it's gonna happen sometime in the future.

Maybe it'll be today after the program.

Who knows?

Well, let's end up talking about our writing again.

Yesterday, we did this one and I was gonna change but then I said, no way, I wanna do this one because we didn't have enough time with it.

Let's read it again.

The title is "A Lake".

Nate and Kate go to a big lake.

They take a red rake.

Kate dug in the hot sand.

"I can wade in the lake," said Nate.

There are a whole lot of a blank e examples that will say a and we found lake and we found lake here.

But look at this one.

There's the a blank e right there.

So the e is telling the a, "Hey, say your name not your sound."

How about, do you see...

Yes, right here with rake.

There's that a blank e and the e is telling the a, "Hey, say your name."

Do you see that?

That is so good.

And here's another one, wade.

There is it, the e is telling the a, "Hey, a, say your name."

Oh my goodness.

Look at all those.

And there's lake and Nate and Kate.

Oh, wow, so many of them.

And they all have that a blank e combination that we've been talking about on our poster.

Oh my goodness.

We've been having so much fun today.

I hope you come see me tomorrow so we can learn so much more.

Ah, bye.

(bright guitar music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪