Rationale:  For children to be able to read words they must recognize the phonemes in a word.  Some phonemes can be made up of two letters making one special sound.  These phonemes are called digraphs.  One digraph that is sometimes difficult for children to recognize is the /ch/ sound.  Children will learn to recognize the /ch/ digraph by reading and spelling words that contain the digraph.  After the lesson children will know that when c and h are put together they make the /ch/ sound.

Materials:  one copy of the poem Children, Children Everywhere by: Jack Prelutsky, chewy chocolate chip cookies for students, copy for each child of Chip Gets a Dog published by Steck Vaughn Company, a card for each child with ch written on one side.

Procedures:
1) Today we are going to talk about two letters that we have already learned about and the neat thing they do when you put them together.  Write c on board and see if students can identify its name and the sound it makes.  Write h on the board. Can anyone tell me what sound h makes?  Right- the /h/ sound.
2) When c and h get together they make one special sound, the /ch/ sound.  Okay, say that sound with me-/ch/.  Good.  Now I'm going to say a silly sentence and you say it after me.  Say "Charlie chose chewy chocolate and cherry cheerios."  Great, now lets really try to say the /ch/ sound in each word like this Ch..arlie ch..ose ch..ewy ch..ocolate and ch..erry ch..eerios.  Great job.
3) Now I am going to read a poem and every time you hear the /ch/ sound I want you to hold up your ch card.  Read poem Children, Children Everywhere.  Let students pick out the /ch/ sounds.  Model this with first line of poem.
4) Pass out copies of Chip Gets a Dog and a chocolate chip cookie to each child.   I want you to read the book and try to remember what words you hear or see /ch/ in.  After you have read the book you can eat your chewy chocolate chip cookie.
5) Now I want you to write your own tongue twister about Chip from the story using as many ch words as you can.
6) Assessment: I want everyone to make a list of all the words they found in the story that have the /ch/ in them. Have students bring lists to me one by one and read the words aloud to me.  Have them identify what letters are making the /ch/ sound.  Other students should be working on their words while I am talking with individual children.
 

References:
 Murray, Dr. Bruce.  Reading Genie Website.  Retrieved October 20, 2002 from Auburn University Website: http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/breakthroughs/obrienbr.html

Prelutsky, Jack.  Random House Book of Poetry for Children.  Random House: New York, 1983.

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