Emergent Literacy Design
The Icky-Sticky Sound Rationale: To learn to read and spell words, children need the alphabetic insight that letters stand for phonemes, and spellings map these out in spoken words. Short vowels are hard phonemes to identify. This lesson will help children identify the short i sound /i/. The children will learn to recognize /i/ in spoken words by learning the letter symbol, and then will practice finding /i/ in words.

Materials: primary paper and pencil
      Chart with tongue twister
      Cards with “i” and “?”
      Tin Man Fix It (Published by: Educational Insights)
      Picture page (attached)
      Drawing paper and crayons

Procedures:
1. I will say “The tricky part of our language is learning what letters stand for the mouth moves we make as we say words. Today, we are going to practice spotting the mouth move /i/. Soon, we will be able to spot this sound easily in a lot of words.”
2. I will say, “Did you ever touch something that was sticky? (like gum or a lollipop) and say /i/? Let’s pretend we touched something sticky and say /i/ that is so sticky!”
3. “Now let’s try a tongue twister (on chart). ‘Iggy’s iguana is icky-sticky’. Now lets all say this together once, and then we will say it again, but will stretch out the /i/ sound. Iiiiiiiiiggy’s iiiiiiiiiguana iiiiiiis iiiicky-stiiiiiicky. Good job boys and girls.”
4. Now students will take out paper and pencil. I will say “we can use the letter i to spell /i/. Now we will learn to write it. We will start at the fence line, draw straight down to the sidewalk. Now, lift your pencil and make a dot just above the sidewalk.” Then I will come around and look at everyone’s “i.” I will say to the children “after I put a stamp on your work, draw five more “i’s” just like the one you have on your paper.
5. Now, we will play a game. “I will call on some of you to answer these questions, but you must tell me why you chose this answer. Do you hear /i/ in hit or hug? Sick or well? Rich or poor? Now, I am going to pass out some special cards to everyone with an “i” on one side and a question mark on the other side. Show me the “i” side if you hear /i/ in these words and the “?” if you don’t. (I will say these words one by one).Iggy, iguana, is, icky, sticky, he, hill, was, hug.”
6. “Class we will now read Tin Man Fix It.” I will talk with the children about this story. I will read the story again and let the children hold up their special cards when they hear words with /i/. Then, I will list these words on the board. I will then distribute drawing paper and crayons and ask the students to draw a picture of one of the /i/ words that is on the board. They will write a message with invented spelling about what they drew, and why they picked that one. I will put up their work in the room or the hall outside our class.
7. For assessment, I will distribute the picture page I created. I will help each child recognize each picture. I will ask my students to circle the pictures whose names have /i/.

Reference: Eldgredge, J. Lloyd. (1995). Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms. New Jersey: Prenctice Hall.

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