Emergent
Literacy Design: Wishing with W
Rationale:
This lesson will help children identify /w/, the phoneme represented by
W. Students will learn to recognize /w/ in spoken words by
learning a meaningful representation (blowing out the candles on a
cake) and the letter symbol W, practice finding /w/ in words,
and apply phoneme awareness with /w/ in phonetic cue reading by
distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
This lesson is geared towards an appropriate literacy goal for students
at this stage of literacy development.
Materials: Primary
paper and a pencil; chart that says, "We wash wiggly worms"; the W
book; word cards with WE, MAT, FISH, WENT, WEST,
and WISH; assessment worksheet (below) identifying /w/
Procedures:
1. Say: Our written language is a secret
code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for--the mouth
moves we make as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting
the mouth move /w/.
We spell /w/ with letter W.
W looks like candles on a birthday cake, and /w/ sounds
like when you blow out your birthday candles.
2. Let's pretend to blow out our candles,
/w/, /w/, /w/. [Pantomime blowing out candles] Notice what your
mouth is doing? (making a small circle). When we say /w/, we blow air
through the circle our mouth makes.
3. Let me show you how to find /w/ in
the word water.
I'm going to stretch water out in super slow motion and
listen for my toothbrush. Www-a-a-t-e-rr.
Slower: Www-a-a-a-t-e-r-r-r There it was!
I felt my mouth make a circle and blow out air. I can feel the
candles in /w/ in water.
4. Let's try a tongue twister [on
chart]. " We wash wiggly worms." Everybody say it three times together.
Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /w/ at the beginning of
the words. "Wwwe wwwash wwwiggly wwworms." Try it again, and this time
break it off the word: "/w/ e
/w/ ash /w/ iggly /w/ orms."
Complete, so that everything necessary
is mentioned and clearly described in an easily accessible and
well-organized form.
5. [Have students take out primary paper
and pencil]. We use letter W to spell /w/. Capital W looks like
candles sticking out of a cake.
Let's write the lowercase letter w. Start at the fence.
Draw a tilted line all the way down to the sidewalk. Then draw a line
tilted the other way up to the fence. The
draw another tilted line the other way back down to the sidewalk. And
then draw another line the other way back up to the fence. I want to
see everybody's w. After I put a smile on it, I want you to
make nine more just like it.
6. Call on students to answer and tell
how they knew: Do you hear /w/ in work or fun? wiggle
or still? we or us? want or have?
will or not? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth
move /w/ in some words. Blow out your candles if you hear /w/: The,
wiggly, white, worm, went, for, a, walk, with, his, friend, Walter.
7. Say: "Let's look at a W
book.
This book names different things that start with
W. Ask children if they can think of other words with
/w/. Ask the children to write a short story (2-3 sentences) with a
character that stars with /w/ and that does things that start with /w/.
Then have each student draw a picture of their /w/ story. Display their
work.
8. Show WEEK and model how to decide if
it is week or meek: The
W tells me to blow out the candles, /w/, so this word is www-eek,
week. You try some: WAY: way or
hay? WILL: bill or will? WENT: went or sent? WELL: tell or well? WE: we
or me?
9. For assessment, distribute the
worksheet.
Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the
pictures that begin with F. Call students individually to read
the phonetic cue words from step #8.
Reference:
Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1990). Acquiring the alphabetic
principle: A case for
teaching recognition of phoneme
identity. Journal of Educational Psychology,
82, 805-81reader to track down the source.
Assessment:
http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/w-begins2.htm