4th-5th Grade Level 4 Review /oa/ and /ee/ and /ay/

streamlined instruction accelerated achievement

Advanced
PHONICS

Fourth to Fifth Grade
Review

Split & Write It

Review!

Directions: Support your student’s reading of the following multi-syllable words. Then ask him to
split the word into chunks with a slash mark, as in the example below. Finally, have him write each
word by chunks as he says each word by chunks. (Not all lines below will be needed.)

1 . ele va tor

2. a s s i s ta n c e
3. d e l i v e r y
4. a w k w a r d
5. u n e m p l oy m e nt
6. l a w y e r
7. d e fe a te d
8. o p p o s i t i o n
9. e nte r p r i s e
10. m o i s t u r e
11. throughout
12. d e s p i te
13. s u p p o s e
14. e m p h a s i z e
15. c h ow d e r

tor

Read It & Search For It

Directions: “Can you recall the key sentence for the
/oa/ sound? You began the year with that! Write it
on the dry erase board.” (Go home to show the boat
to Joe.) “How about /ee/?” (As he dreams of cookies,
he sees many of these.) “And, finally, try /ay/.”
(They came to play with the eight, great trains on
the table.)

“Read the words in each column and circle the
target sound in each word. Then point to where
the word would belong in the chart below.”

Go
o

/oa/

/ee/

/ay/

ownership
Minnesota
tomatoes
erosion
coastal
elbow
hormones
aboard
Napoleon
pillow
throat
promote
odors

proceed
stability
ceased
deliberately
northeast
reliable
relieve
volunteers
separately
greetings
eagerly
depressed
Sweden

say
grazing
complain
ratio
basement
decay
holiday
entertainment
graceful
graduate
maintenance
Abraham
weigh

home
o_e

he
e

dreams
ea

They
ey

came
a_e

show
ow

the

boat
oa

Joe.
oe

cookies,
ie

he
e

sees
ee

many
y

of these.

play
ay

with the eight

great
ea

trains
ai

on the table.

eigh
2

e_e
a

Reviewing
William Holtzclaw wrote the following story about his life as a young boy in Alabama in the late 19th
century-over 135 years ago! His parents were sharecropping farmers which meant they rented the
land that they farmed on and owed much of the profit from the crops to the landowner. Despite
a challenging beginning, Holtzclaw worked tirelessly to educate himself and then to start one of
the first colleges for African Americans, Utica Institute of Mississippi, founded in 1903.

Read this adapted autobiographical account (true story about
one’s own life) of his early education and be ready to re-tell it
in your own words at the end.

Going to School Under
Difficulties, Part One

Abridged from the original by William Holtzclaw

I started working on a farm
when I was only four years old.
I had to ride a mule that was
deaf and blind while my brother held the plow.
When I was six years old and my brother was
four, I had a different job daily. Every morning my
brother and I took my father’s breakfast and dinner
to him at the sawmill where he worked. He was paid
sixty cents a day for carrying logs.
My dad worked for a good man, Frank Weathers, who
hired many people, both blacks and whites. Where
© 2019 Reading Simplified

continued…

we lived there were no public schools for black
children. There weren’t many schools for whites.
Mr. Weathers found a house near the sawmill and
hired a teacher. He urged the black parents to send
their children to the school. However, not many felt
the need to send them.
But my mother and father knew that education
was important. They made sure their children were
blessed with a good education.
After all the timber had been cut near where we
lived, Mr. Weathers moved his mills. That left us
without a school. My father called a meeting of
the men in the town. They agreed to build a school
house themselves. They cut down pine trees into
pieces about eight inches around. Then they split
them in half. Those pieces were used to make
the school house building. The school classroom
benches were made of the same pine wood. There
was no floor, nor chimney. It was a labor of love,
and we had a school.
© 2019 Reading Simplified

continued…

Some of the boys had trousers1 that were
damaged by sap2 from the new pine benches. Since
I only wore a shirt, that didn’t happen to me.
In fact, I never wore trousers until there were
complaints about my lack of clothing.
There was a special event at the end of the first
school year. The teacher asked all the pupils to
appear dressed in white. We had few clothes
and none of them were white. Father said it was
foolish to buy clothes that could only be used once.
But my mother was always resourceful.3 When we
went to bed the night before the event, we still
had no white clothes. Also, we had no white cloth.
But when we awoke the next morning, all three of
us had beautiful white suits anyway.

pants
sticky substance that exists inside trees; maple syrup is the sap from a maple tree
3
creative with finding solutions
2

continued…

Let me explain how that happened. My mother had a
beautiful white Sunday petticoat.4 During the night,
she cut it up and made it into suits for us. At the
event, we said our little speeches, and I suppose we
looked about as good as the
others. At least we thought so.
Maybe that was enough. I am
sure that there was no mother
there who was prouder of her
children than ours. My speech
made such an impression that
our white landlord lifted me
off the stage when I had
finished speaking and gave me
a quarter.
What happened to Mr. Holtzclaw when he was a boy? How
would you feel if you had experienced what he did? You can
look forward to hearing more about his life in the next session…

old-fashioned skirt-like undergarment