“Hickory Dickory Dock”

Stephanie McLure
Emergent Literacy Lesson Design

Rationale:  Children use phoneme awareness to help them learn how to read and write. Students must be taught the sounds that letters make  so they can learn to sound out or decode words. The focus of this lesson is

 ck = /K/. Students will learn the /K/ sound and practice picking out the sounds in words.   

Materials: primary paper and pencil; chart with "Hickory Dickory Dock”  Nursery Rhyme on it; flash cards with words that have ck= /K/: kick, lick, sticky, hickory, clock; flash cards with non ck= /K/ words: mouse, ran, house, flash [ more may be needed if there is a larger class]; picture of camera.
Procedures:

1.Ask students: Have you ever had your picture taken? There is a noise when you take the picture can you here the /K/ sound?  We are going to learn the /K/ mouth move today.   [Pretend that you are taking a picture.] Remember to click your camera! Say /K/.

2. Introduce lesson by saying that writing is a code.  If we can learn what letters stand for, we can break the code.  We will go slowly and figure out what our mouths are doing when we say words.  Today, we are going to learn the mouth move for /K/.  It might be hard at first, but we will eventually get it.  Say /K/ several times and focus on what your mouths are doing.

3. Say: Let’s practice our /K/ sound in the nursery rhyme “Hickory Dickory Dock”   Recite the poem and point to the words as you see them on the poster. Everyone say it three times.  Now we will say it again, but this time, I want you to stretch out all of the words so we can hear /K/.  Remember to click your camera! 

4.[Have students take out primary paper and pencil.]  We can use the letters c and k to spell /K/.  I am going to write the letters first, and then we will do it together.  [Model how to write c and k.]  To make our little c, start a little below the fence, come up and touch the fence, swing around to the sidewalk by making a half circle, and come up a little above the sidewalk.  To make little k, start at the sky, come all the way down to the sidewalk, then go to the fence and come to the line half way, and then go straight to the sidewalk.  Let’s do it together.  Now, I am going to walk around and help anyone who needs it.  Then everyone who makes his or her c and h will get a smiley face. 

5. Call on students to answer and explain their answer: (Model how to tell if /ck/ is in a word by directing students to pay attention to what their mouths are doing as they say each word.)  Do you hear /ck/ in kick or mouse?  Ran or lick?  Sticky or house?  Hickory or house?  Flash or clock? 

7.Say: “Now I am going to give you flashcards with some /K/ words and some non /K/ words on them.  You are going to figure out which ones are the /K/ flashcards and which ones are the non /K/ flashcards.   If you need help, I will be walking around the room to help those of you who need it.

8.For Assessment, I will distribute a picture page to each student.  I will help the students name each picture.  Then, I will ask each student to circle the pictures whose names have /K/.  

Reference:

1. http://www.auburn.edu/%7Emurraba/connect/williamsel.html  Andrea Williams, Choo, Choo! All Aboard!

2. Eldredge, J. Lloyd; Teach Decoding: Why and How, second edition; Upper Saddle River, NJ; Pearson Education, Inc.; 2005, 1995; 60-82

Click here to return to Innovations.