Dinosaurs Say Duh!
Emergent Literacy
Rationale: Phonemes are very important to learn for proper reading instruction. Students must learn letters and their related phonemes in order to become fluent readers. Research has shown that letter recognition and phonemic awareness are the two strongest predictors of success in reading. The goal of this lesson is for students to learn the phoneme d, and better recognize the sound at the beginning, middle, and ending of words. They will also learn the motions used when writing the letter because many students have difficulty distinguishing between d and b when writing, so practice with writing d will help students make this distinction.
Materials: A large picture of the letter d, poster with tongue twister and pictures depicting it, "David the dinosaur doesn't like doughnuts," picture cards with pictures of words: (dog, shirt, doctor, basket, desk, bed, deer, car, dinosaur, juice, dribble, fish, duck, horse), white board, dry erase markers, primary paper and pencils for each students, Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff, and a worksheet with pictures (dish, box, cow, dentist, dish, cup, lid, tree, dolphin, doll, hat, dime, dress, blanket).
Procedures:
1.
Introduce the
lesson by explaining that students will be learning more about the
letter d. "Today, we are
going
to talk about this letter (hold up a picture
of the letter d).
Can anyone tell me what
this letter is? That's right.
It's a d. D
makes a d-d-d-d sound. When you think of
the letter d, I want you to
think of
someone saying "duh," because that's what the letter d
sounds like. Everyone say duh duh duh."
2.
Show the students the poster with the tongue
twister and picture. "Now I'm going
to say a sentence that has a lot of
words with the letter d. I'm
going to
say it by myself first, and then
I want you to repeat it. David the
dinosaur doesn't like doughnuts. Ok, now
you say it. David the dinosaur doesn't
like doughnuts.
Now, what was that sound
that I said the d sounds like? /d/.
I'm going to stretch that sentence out so that I can feel the
way my
mouth moves
when I say each d. Duh-avid
the duh-inosaur duh-oesn't like
duh-oughnuts. This sounds silly, but try
to say it with me. Duh-avid the
duh-inosaur duh-oesn't like
duh-oughnuts.
Good job everyone!"
3.
Next I'll use the
picture cards and hold up two at a time, one with a picture that starts
with the letter d with one that does not.
This will help students be
able to hear the
phoneme /d/ and distinguish between it and different phonemes. "I'm going to hold up two pictures and I
want you to tell me what
each picture is and then which of
the pictures starts
with the letter d and has that /d/
sound." Hold up two pictures (dog
and shirt). Students will
say
the name of
each picture. Call on one
student to pick the picture with the phoneme /d/. Ask
them how they knew which word to
pick. Continue with
all seven sets of
pictures.
4.
Have the students
take out primary paper and pencil, and model each step for writing the
letter d. "Let me show
you how
to spell the /d/ sound with the
letter d. Start with little c by
starting just below the fence.
Go up to the fence and curve around until you get to the
sidewalk. Curve back up and you
have little c.
Then go up to the rooftop and make a line all the way down to
the
sidewalk to make the little d. I'm
going to come around and check
everybody's
first d. Then I want you
to try six more times."
5. "Sometimes, d comes in the middle or at the end of a word. Let me show you how to find the d in the word middle. I'm going to stretch the word out very slowly and listen for the /d/. mmm-iddle, mmm-iii-ddle, mmm-iii-ddddd-le. There it is! I hear /d/ in middle!"
6. Call on students to answer each and tell how they knew. "Do you hear /d/ in taddle or pencil? Fish or kid? Dark or back? Lid or chick?"
7.
Show the book Danny and the Dinosaur. "Danny is a little boy who loves
dinosaurs. One day he gets really lucky and
finds one in a museum. Danny
rides his
dinosaur out of the museum and into the street.
As you can imagine, this causes a lot of confusion when people
see a
read dinosaur. We're
going to read to
find out what kind of stuff Danny and his dinosaur do.
Now remember that /d/ sound? I want
you to say DUH every time you hear
that sound." Read the book.
8. Distribute the worksheet with pictures and a few words. Ask students to circle the pictures whose names have words with d. Use this to assess students' progress.
References:
Battles, Ellen. (2007). Diving Deep. Emergent
Literacy.
Genie Website:
retrieved:
Hoff, Syd. Danny and
the Dinosaur.