Week 33, lesson 2 -est Ending - Phonics Phase 5, unit 4 - Lesson plan

In Week 33, Day 2 of the Phonics Phase 5, Unit 4 lesson, the focus is on the suffix '-est' which denotes the superlative form of an adjective. The objective is clear: students will learn about adding '-est' to words to indicate the highest degree of a quality. The lesson begins with a 'Grapheme Match' activity, where students are encouraged to identify the phoneme from a pictophone and then brainstorm various graphemes that represent this sound. Examples include different spellings for the sounds made by 'ogre', 'ice cream', and 'eagle'.

The teaching component involves writing the words "strong", "stronger", and "strongest" on the board and engaging the children in decoding and blending these words. Through this exercise, students observe the use of the '-er' and '-est' suffixes and learn that they are used for making comparisons, with '-er' indicating a comparison between two things, and '-est' denoting the most of a particular quality. During practice, a range of base words such as 'cold', 'kind', 'smart', 'nice', and 'proud' are presented for the children to convert into their comparative and superlative forms, with the class decoding each new word together. Finally, the application of this learning is tested through a 'Yes/No' activity, where children use YES or NO cards to respond to phrases that use the '-est' suffix, such as "A snail is the strongest animal" and "Night is darker than day," further reinforcing their understanding of superlative adjectives.