Lesson 13: Vowel Team ee • Teacher Guide & Master Key

[ANSWER KEY] TEACHER REFERENCE GUIDE EVALUATION STANDARD 100% Mastery

1. Master Diacritical Solutions for Section 1 Words (Proper Mark: ēe)

Nasal Codas/iːn/, /iːm/

seen → sēen/siːn/

seem → sēem/siːm/

-eep (Blends)/iːp/

sleep → slēep/sliːp/

steep → stēep/stiːp/

-eep / -eet/iːp/, /iːt/

creep → crēep/kriːp/

sweet → swēet/swiːt/

-eet / -eek/iːt/, /iːk/

meet → mēet/miːt/

cheek → chēek/tʃiːk/

2. Poetry Underscoring Solutions & Directive 3 Analysis

Selection A (N. P. Willis) — Underscore words where long e is represented by ee:

The bird is hushed, and so is the bee,

The sun is creeping up steeple and tree.

Selection B — Underscore words with ee; Identify words with other e sounds:

Think what a host of queer little seeds,

Of flowers and mosses, of ferns and weeds,

Are under the leaves and under the snow,

Waiting to grow !

3. Linguistic Solutions for Directive 3 ("Other Sound than e Short or e Long")

Primary Target Words:

• ferns (/fɜːrnz/): The er is an r-controlled vowel producing the mid central /ɜːr/ sound. It is neither short /ɛ/ nor long /iː/.
• under (/ˈʌn.dər/) / flowers (/ˈflaʊ.ərz/): The unstressed -er produces the schwa-r /ər/.

Alternate Valid Answers:

• the (/ðə/): Unstressed schwa /ə/.
• little (/ˈlɪt.əl/): Syllabic l with silent e.
• leaves (/liːvz/): Vowel team ea + silent final e after v.

Science of Reading: Orthographic Mapping & R-Controlled Vowels

• Vowel Digraph “ee” Stability: Unlike ea (which has multiple sounds: leaves, head, great), the digraph ee is one of the most consistent phoneme-grapheme correspondences in English, virtually always representing tense long /iː/.

• Bossy-R / R-Controlled Vowels: Directive 3 explicitly introduces students to vowel alteration caused by following /r/ (ferns, under), laying crucial foundation for the standard /ɜːr/ phonograms (er, ir, ur).

Task Focus	Instructional Standard	Scoring (25 pts)
1. Word Copying & Dictation	Correct spelling and handwriting of all 8 target words, with accurate diacritical mark (ēe).	8 pts (1 pt / word)
2. Poetry Transcription	Neat copying of Selections A & B with correct capitalization and punctuation.	8 pts
3. Underscoring “ee” Words	Accurate identification and underscoring of all 7 words: bee, creeping, steeple, tree, queer, seeds, weeds.	5 pts
4. Directive 3 Other Sound	Correct identification of 2 words with other e sounds (e.g., ferns, under, flowers).	4 pts (2 pts / word)