Panting in the hhhhot sun a Emergent Literacy Lesson Plan By: Anna Kyser
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /h/, the phoneme represented by H. Students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (dog panting) and the letter symbol H, practice finding /h/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /h/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Hopper horse hopped home happily”; drawing paper and crayons; Mary Wormell “Hilda Hen’s Scary Night” (HMH Books for Young Readers, 1997); word cards with house, hide, kite, hive, joke, happy; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/ (URL below).
Procedures: 1. Say: The English language is a very confusing language. The key is to learn exactly what sounds go with what letters. When we say our letters we move our mouth in a certain way. Today we are going to learn how to move our mouth and say /h/. The way we spell /h/ is with the letter H. When we say H it looks like a dog house and a dog pants. When a dog pants, it sounds like /h/.
2. Let’s pretend that we are dog and we are in the hot sun. The dog says /h/, /h/, /h/. [Stick the tongue out and breathe out hard]. Notice that when you say it that your mouth is open fully and you breathe out.
3. Now, let me show you how I would find /h/ in the word home. I am going to say the word home really slowly and draw it out and listen for my dog panting. Hhh-oo-mm-e. Even slower: hhhhh-oooo-mmm-eee. I heard it. At the beginning I blew out the /h/. I could feel the dog panting in home.
4. We are going to try on tongue twister [on chart]. “Harry Henderson hopped home happily.” Now I want everyone to say it three times. This time, I want you to stretch out the /h/ at the beginning at the beginning of the words. “Hhhhhary hhhhenderson hhhhopped hhhome hhhhappily.” Now you are going to say it again but you will break the /h/ in the beginning of the words. “/h/ arry /h/ henderson /h/ opped /h/ ome /h/ appily.”
5. [Have the students take out the primary paper and pencil]. We use the letter H to spell /h/. Capital H kind of looks like a dog house. Now we are going to write the lowercase letter h. Start at the roof top and go all the way down to the sidewalk. From the sidewalk, trace the straight line back up to the fence and then go over the fence and curve it to the right and back down to the sidewalk. I want to see everyone’s h. After I put a sticker on everyone’s paper, I want you to write the f nine more times just like the first time.
6. Call on students to answer these questions and then ask them how they knew the answer: Do you hear /h/ in rain or house? Hive or dome? Pool or Horn? Okay or horse? Heavy or good? Say: Now I am going to say some words. When you hear /h/ stick your tongue out like a dog when you hear /h/: ran, hotdog, horn, right, dog, helmet, did, hippo, way, hair.
7. Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Mary Wormell tells us about Hilda Hen’s scary night. Do you /h/ in the title? We are going to read the book and see why she has such a scary night.” While reading the book draw out any H words that may be on the page. After the book is over, the children should come up with a scary creature and name it a silly name that starts with H. The children should write their own scary creatures name with their own spelling and then draw a picture of their scary picture.
8. Show HAT and model how to figure out if the word is hat or bat: The H tells me to stick my tongue out, /h/, so the word is hhh-at, hat. Now you try some: HORN: corn or horn? HAIR: hair or pair? HAND: band or hand? HAIL: hail or pail? HAM: bam or ham?
9. For the assessment, you should hand out the worksheet. The students should draw lines from the horses to the pictures that start with H. The students can also color the animals. While this is happening, you can call the students up one by on and read the phonetic cue words from step #8.