Roaring Rs
Emergent Literacy
Rationale: According to Adams
(1990), letter knowledge and phonemic awareness are the best
predictors of early reading success. Therefore, children in the
emergent stage of literacy should work extensively with letters
and phonemes to prepare them to read. This lesson will help
children identify /r/, the phoneme represented by R.
Students will learn to recognize /r/ in spoken words by learning
a meaningful representation (roar like a lion) and the letter
symbol R, practice finding /r/ in words, and apply
phoneme awareness with /r/ in phonetic cue reading by
distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Picture-sound card,
writing chart with tongue twister written out and a blank page
for letter writing, word cards [RUN, RIP, RUG, SEAL, MAKE, RAT], primary paper and
pencils for students, 1 copy of
Rotten Ralph, worksheets
(1 per student)
Procedure:
1.Say: To learn to read, we need
to be able to understand the sounds the letters make. Today we
are going to learn about the letter R. First, we're going
to listen so we can hear the sound the letter
R makes.
R makes the /r/
sound. We're going to learn what the letter R looks like and how
to write it too!
2.[Show picture-sound card of a
roaring lion with the letter R.] Here is the letter R. It looks like a
letter
D with legs. /r/ is
the sound a lion makes when it roars. RRRoar. Can you make the
roaring sound? When you make that roaring sound, do you feel
what your lips are doing? They make an O-shape. Try it again.
Rrrroar. Do you feel the O-shape, like a circle? Watch out for
your mouth making that O-shape. It's a clue that you're making
the /r/ sound! When you hear the /r/ sound, put your hands up
and roar like a lion, like this. [Teacher demonstrates.]
3.Let's see if we can hear the /r/
sound in some words. Let's try the word gross. I'm going to
stretch gross out
really slowly, and I want you to listen for the /r/ sound.
Pretend to roar when you hear it. G-rrross. Did you hear it?
Let's try it again. G-rrrrrrross. [Teacher puts hands up and
makes roaring face at the /r/ sound.] I heard it that time.
Let's see if you can hear it in some other words. Let's try the
word
roar. Roar like a
lion when you hear the /r/ sound. Rrroarrrr. Did you hear it
twice? Let's stretch it out again. Rrrrrrroarrrrrr. [Teacher
puts hands up and makes roaring face at both /r/ sounds.]
4.Now we're going to try a tongue
twister! [Teacher shows tongue twister on chart, pointing to
each word as it is read.] Rob the Rhino is Ready to Run. Now,
say it with me and act like you're roaring when you hear the /r/
sound. Rob the Rhino is Ready to Run. [Teacher puts hands up and
makes roaring face at the /r/ sounds.] Let's stretch the /r/
sounds out now. RRRRob the RRRRhino is RRRReady to RRRRun. Now,
let's break the /r/ sounds off the rest of the word, like this.
/R/-ob the /R/-hino is /R/-eady to /R/-un.
5. See if you can pick out the
words with the /r/ sound. [Call on students to answer and tell
how they knew.] Do you hear it in walk or run? Red or blue? Bird or bug? Now I want you
to act like you're roaring when you hear the /r/ sound. Do you
hear it in brown? Yellow?
Purple? Green? Black? Gray?
6.Now we're going to practice
writing the letter
R. [Students take out
pencils & primary paper.] The letter R is what makes the
/r/ sound. [Teacher demonstrates strokes on chart as they are
explained.] To write capital letter R, start at the
rooftop and draw a line all the way down to the sidewalk. Then
put your pencil back at the rooftop and make a curve down to the
fence. See how the top looks like the letter D? To make it an R, it needs one more
leg. Start at the fence, then draw another line down to the
sidewalk. This one should poke out a little, like it's kicking.
Now, see if you can make 6 more
Rs.
7.Now we're going to look at some
words. We're going to figure out what they say. Remember, if you
see an
R in the word, it has
the /r/ sound. [Teacher shows cards as questions are asked,
starting with
RUN.] Is this word
RUN or
FUN? Do you see the
R? That means it's
RUN. Let's try some more. RIP: rip or
tip? RUG: bug or
rug? SEAL: real
or seal? MAKE: make or
rake? RAT: rat or bat?
8.Now that you know how to write
it, see if you can hear the sound the R makes in words.
We're going to read some of Rotten Ralph. In this book, Sarah has a cat named
Ralph, but he is a very bad cat. One day he gets in so much
trouble that Sarah's dad kicks him out! What do you think will
happen to him? Watch out for the /r/ sound while we read. When
you hear it, I want you to act like you're roaring. Remember,
the letter
R says /r/. [Read a
few pages of
Rotten Ralph, with
children "roaring" when they hear /r/. ]
9.Assessment: Hand out worksheet
for students to match the Rs with words that start with R.
Sources:
Related Lesson:
Miss Piggie the Pig! By Meg Hall:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/hallmel.htm
Worksheet from
http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/r-begins1.htm
Gantos, Jack (1980).
Rotten Ralph. Rubel,
Nicole, ill. Sandpiper Publishers.
Adams, M. J.
(1990).
Beginning to read:
Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.