EMERGENT LITERACY
H is HOT!
Rationale: This lesson will help emergent readers identify /h/. The phoneme represented by H. students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy that relates to the letter symbol H. In this case the sound analogy will be the panting sound a dog makes when they get hot. Students will also practice finding /h/ in words and apply phenome awareness with /h/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Henry the Hippo"; drawing paper and crayons; Eric Carle’s A House for Hermit Crab (Simon Spotlight, 1987); word cards with HOW, HARE, HOLD, DOME, and BAND; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/ (URL below).
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 /h/. We spell /h/ with letter H. You can make H look like any animal (dog) by drawing eyes and paws, and /h/ sounds like the panting noise an animal (or YOU) makes when they get hot.
2. Let's pretend to be hot and sweaty, /h/, /h/, /h/. [Pantomime panting] Notice how your mouth is open and your tongue is closing off your throat a little bit? When we say /h/, we blow air out of our mouths while closing off our throats slightly with our tongue.
3. Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word ahead. I'm going to stretch ahead out in super slow motion and listen for my panting dog. a-hea-d. Slower: aa-hhh-e-ad- There it was! I felt my mouth open and air go above my tongue. Panting dog /h/ is in ahead.
4. . Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Henry hippo hops on his bed. How high can Henry hop before he gets hurt? Here’s our tickler: "Henry Hippo hops high.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of the words. "Hhhhenry Hhhippo hhops hhhigh ." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/h/enry /h/ippo /h/ops /h/igh.
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter H to spell /h/. Capital H looks sort of like a dog sitting with his legs in front of him. Let's write the lowercase letter h. Start just below the rooftop. Draw a straight line all the way down to the sidewalk. Without picking your pencil up, go back up to the fence and curve back down to the sidewalk! I want to see everybody's h. 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 /h/ in had or fun? finger or happy? on or heavy? hit or drop? Hero or sore? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Wave your hand in your face like you are hot if you hear /h/: The, heavy, hippo, jumped, high, to, reach, the, hanging, flowers.
7. Say: "Lets read a book! I have a hook called A House for a Hermit Crab written by Eric Carle. Ask children if they hear /h/ in the title. House and hermit, Great Job! This book is about a Hermit Crab who had outgrown his shell and must find a new one with the help of some friends. What will happen when the Hermit crab outgrows this shell too? Throughout the book you will hear many words with the /h/ sound. When you hear one of these words, I want you to wave your hand in your face like you are hot (gesture the sign). Read book as a class.
8. Show Hog and model how to decide if it is hog or dog: The H tells me I am hot, /h/, so this word is hhh-og, hog. You try some: HOW: how or cow? HARE: hare or dare? HOLD: hold or bold? DOME: dome or home? BAND: band or hand?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with H. Call students individually to the phonetic cue words from step #9
Reference: Susanna Fields, Running is Hhh-ard!
https://susannafields95.wixsite.com/literacylessons/emergent-literacy
Assessment Worksheet: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-h_WFQTT.pdf?up=1466611200