Hungry Harry Needs Help!
Emergent Literacy
Rationale:
Students need to learn the relationships between phonemes and graphemes
before they can become fluent readers. In this lesson students will
learn how to connect the phoneme /h/ with its grapheme H or h. Students
will learn to recognize the phoneme /h/ in spoken and written language.
Throughout the duration of this lesson, students will use tools such as
pictures, gestures, tongue ticklers, and decodable texts to help them
develop their awareness of the /h/ phoneme.
Materials:
1. Tongue tickler written on poster board
2. Picture of panting runner (http://www.active.com/images/upimages/tired_runner1.jpg)
3. Hungry Harry by Joan Partis
4. Worksheet (http://www.tlsbooks.com/letterh_1.pdf)
5. Primary writing paper and
pencils for students
Procedures:
1. Show picture of panting runner. Say: Does anyone in here like to
run? I do but running makes me really tired. When I get tired I
breathe very heavily. Does anyone else do this when they are tired? Can
anyone demonstrate how they breathe when they are tired? Allow
students to show the class how they breathe when they are tired.
2. Say: Now I am going to show you how I breathe after I run. Model the
sound that a panting runner makes by verbalizing the phoneme /h/ and
pumping the arms.
Say: Now I want you to practice breathing heavily and pumping your arms
as you breathe. Does everyone hear the /h/ sound that we are
making? Today we are going to practice finding the /h/ sound in words.
Let's practice making the /h/ sound. When you make the /h/ sound is
your mouth open or closed? Notice how the air moves from the back of
your mouth to the front.
3. Show students the cover of Hungry Harry. Ask the students
what they think the story will be about after viewing the front cover.
Say: Today we are going to be reading Hungry Harry. Harry is a
frog who needs our help. He has to find food so he doesn't starve! Do
you think we can help Harry? We'll have to read and find out!
4. Say: Before we can help Harry, the students have to be able to find
the /h/ sound. Let's practice our h's using a little tongue ticker.
Show students written tongue tickler on poster.
Say: Hungry Harry's hamster had five hamburgers. Now you try. The
students will then practice this tongue tickler several times.
5. Say: Now I am going to name some different types of food that Harry
might like. If you hear /h/ breathe heavily and pump your arms: hotdog.
chicken, honey, cheeseburger, hamburger, hash-browns, honeydew, eggs,
ham.
6. Say: Now I think we are ready to read. If we want to help hungry
Harry, we will have to listen very carefully for the /h/ sound. Each
time you hear /h/ breathe heavily and pump your arms. Listen as I give
you an example. I am reading the title Hungry Harry, so I will breathe
heavily and pump my arms because I hear /h/ is Hhhhhungry and
Hhhhharry. Does everyone understand what we are doing? The teacher
should read the book aloud and pause each time the /h/ sound appears.
7. Students should take out primary writing paper and a pencil. Say:
Now we are going to practice writing the letter H that is used to
represent the /h/ sound. To make a capital H we need two straight lines
coming down from the rooftop and reaching all the way down to the
sidewalk (model as explaining). Then we need to make another line
connecting the first two along the fence. I want everyone to make a row
of H's on their own paper. Now we are going to learn the lowercase h.
Start at the rooftop and draw a line down to the sidewalk. Then go back
up to the fence, making a frowning mouth, and go back down to the
sidewalk. Now I want everyone to practice writing lowercase h's on your
own paper.
For an assessment, the students will complete a worksheet where they
will color in the words that begin with /h/.
References:
Murray, Bruce. Emergent Literacy Design: Brush Your Teeth with F. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html.
Partis, Joanne. Hungry Harry. Scholastic Inc. New York: 2000.
Picture of panting runner: http://www.active.com/images/upimages/tired_runner1.jpg.
Assessment worksheet: http://www.tlsbooks.com/letterh_1.pdf.
