H, H, All
Out of Breath
Emergent Literacy
Rachel Smith
Rationale: This lesson will
help the students identify /h/, the phoneme represented by the
letter H. Students
will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a
meaningful representation (running arms) and the letter symbol
H, practice finding /h/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness
with /h/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words
from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and
pencil; chart with "Harry had a horrible headache and hated to
hear Henry howl."; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's Horton
Hears a Who (Random House, 1954); word cards with
HOG, HIT, NEAT, FIND, HELP, and HATE; assessment
worksheet identifying pictures with /h/ (URL below).
Procedures:
1. Say: Letters
that we see are a code like spies use. The hard part is learning
what each letter stands for and the way your mouth moves as we
say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move
/h/. We spell /h/ with letter
H.
H looks like finish
line for a race, and /h/ sounds like a runner all out of breath
and pants.
2. Let's
pretend to run, /h/, /h/, /h/. [Pump arms like running] What is
your mouth doing while we pant? (Open, circular). When we say
/h/, we blow air out of an open mouth.
3. Let me show
you how to find /h/ in the word hike. I'm going to say it very
slowly so I can hear when I am out of breath. Hhhh-IIII-kkk.
Slower: Hhh-I-I-I-kkkk. I heard it! I felt my mouth make an open
circle. I can feel the panting /h/ in hike.
4. Now let’s
say our tongue twister [on chart]. "Harry had a horrible
headache and hated to hear Henry
howl." Everybody say it three times together. Now let’s
say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of
the words and pump your running arms. " Hhhharry hhhhad a
hhhhhorrible hhhhhheadache and hhhhhhated to hhhhhear Hhhhhenry hhhhhowl." Try it
again, and this timepause between the /h/ and the word: " /H/
arry /h/ ad a /h/ orrible /h/ eadache and /h/ ated to /h/ ear
/H/ enry
/h/ owl.
5. [Have
students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter
H to spell /h/. Capital H looks like the finish line of a race. Let's
write the lowercase letter
h. Start at the
rooftop and draw a straight line to the sidewalk. Then go to the
fence and make a little bump like n from the line down to the
sidewalk.
6. Call on
students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /h/ in
help or
ignore?
hat or
belt?
hop or
jump?
hot or
cold? Say: Who can
spot the open mouth /h/ in some words. Pump your arms if you
hear /h/:
The, hurt,
fluffy,
hang,
high,
how, what, red, tulip.
7. Say: "Now we
are going to read a book called Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss. Horton is a
really big animal with really big ears who can hear something
others can’t. Who thinks they know what Horton is?" Read pages
2-3, drawing out /h/. Ask children if they can think of other
words with /h/. Ask them to make up things the Whos would do
that have /h/in them like
hop or
shop. Then have each
student write their activity in invented spelling and draw a
picture of the Whos doing the activity. Display their work in
the classroom.
8. Show
HOG card and model
how to decide if it is Hog
or
bog: The
H tells me to run to
the finish line, /h/, so this word is hhhh-og, hog. You try
some:
HIT:
hit or
pit?
NEAT: heat or
neat?
FIND: find or
hind?
HELP: Help or
kelp?
HATE:
fate or
hate?
9. For
assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will determine if
the picture starts with H, C, or P. Students will complete
partial spellings with the correct first phoneme. Call students
individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
Reference:
http://havefunteaching.com/worksheets/phonics/beginning-sounds/beginning-sound-worksheet-h-c-p.pdf
http://www.canstockphoto.com/champion-among-the-strongest-6444066.html
Duvall, Jenny; Hip Hop,
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/duvallel.html