Rationale:
In order for children to read they must understand and recognize phonemes in words.  Some phonemes can have two letters, which can be a little more challenging.  Ch  is a digraph that is commonly heard in everyday language and literature.  Children recpognize and understand this digraph to be able to use it in reading and writing.  After this lesson, children will be able to put together c and h to pronounce ch  and to use it in their literary practices.

Materials:  Letters and boxes for letter box lessons, tape, markers, posterboard, the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Procedure:
1. We are going to practice reading and writing and saying the sound ch.  When we put together the letters c and h we will hear the sound ch.  Sometimes that can be confusing because we want to say /c/ and /h/ seperately.  If I say /c/ /h/ /o/ /p/ you might not know that word.  But if I say /ch/ /o/ /p/ you would know that I was saying chop.  Thatâs how c and h work together as ch.  Everyone practice saying ch with me.
2. Now letâs say this tongue twister together.  ãI like to eat chewy, cheesey, chips while I read Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom.ä  Letâs stretch out the ch sound at the beginning of those words.  ãI like to eat chchchewy, chchcheesey,  chchchips while I read Chchchicka-Chchchicka-Boom Boom.ä
3. Now letâs practice spelling some words with ch in them.  I will hand the children letters and boxes for their letterbox lesson.  The words will have three phonemes.  C and h will be taped together because we will use them as one phoneme in one box.   I will ask the children if anyone knows why they are taped together.  They should tell me that it is because they make one sound.  I will demonstrate one word to begin.  To spell the word chop, I will put /ch/ in the first box, /o/ in the second, and /p/ in the third.  Then I will ask the children to spell the following words in their letter boxes:  chub, rich, much, beach, chip.
4. I will then write the words that they just spelled on posterboard and everyone will read them together.
5. I will then read the book Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom.  We will look for and pronounce the ch together throughout the book.
6. Assessment will come as I watch the children work on spelling the words in their letterbox lesson.  We will also take turns coming up to point out the ch that we see on the pages of the book.  I will note both identification and use of the /ch/ phoneme.

Reference:
Murry, Bruce A. and Lesniak, Theresa.  The Letterbox Lesson:  A Hands-On Approach for Teaching Decoding.

Windsor, Shanna.  CTRD 370 student Spring 1999

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