Analise arrived to the class in exceptionally good spirits. She enthusiastically explained that she would be leaving early to go on a trip to celebrate her mother's birthday, which was yesterday. We then began by reviewing some sight words and how long vowel spelling patterns can be challenging because more than one letter can be used to represent one sound, and there are various ways that the sound can be represented in print. We used some examples to illustrate the point, such as there are 4 common ways the sound /a/ can be spelled:"a" as in "acorn", "ae" as in "gate", "ai" as in rain" and "ay" as in "day". We also reviewed that when a vowel sounds like its name, it's called a long sound, but that a vowel letter can also have short sounds. We used a primer to illustrate this, and we observed that whether a vowel has a long sound, a short sound, or remains silent depends on its position in a word and the letters around it.

We then moved on to guided reading and Analise demonstrated that she was able to read the H primer independently and the I primer with some prompts to guide her reading ability and fluency. We read "Splat the Cat - Rain is a Pain," which provided us with an excellent way to review the 'ai' sound blends. We then made a Venn diagram comparing two characters in the book, the cat and the mouse. Analise was able to identify the story as fiction and compared it to the non-fiction book she had read in an earlier session about butterflies, pointing to 'real' facts about butterflies and the glossary of terms in the fact book. Analise was able to retell and summarize the story well in her own words, identified the problem, and suggested a way it could have been avoided. We also discussed the main idea and compared and contrasted character traits and physical traits. This led itself to the perfect way to introduce a Venn diagram and its purpose. Analise colored in the diagram and was proud to be able to correctly identify 14 vowel digraphs in the story. She enjoyed a mini cupcake given to her by another teacher who was celebrating a birthday, and made a personal connection between her and the main character who were both eating frosting. Analise was happy when Miss Elise came to inform her that she was leaving for the day, but not before she hung up her Venn diagram on the classroom wall before leaving with her sisters.