Emergent Literacy | miss-gunter

Emergent Literacy Lesson:

Hurry Down the Hill with H

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /h/, the phoneme represented by h. Students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning the song “H is The Out of Breath Sound,” and learning the letter symbol h. Students will 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, poster with tongue tickler reading “Happy Harry is Hungry For Hamburgers,” visual aid with Harry running (out of breath sound), Hungry Hen (HarperCollins Books, 2001), word cards with HAND, HAT, HOOK, TUCK, and MOP; assessment worksheet identifying pictures that begin with /h/.

Procedures:

Say: Today we are going to learn a new sound. The sound that we are going to learn today is /h/. We spell /h/ with letter H. H looks like Harry running and /h/ sounds like the noise tired Harry makes after hurrying down the hill.
Let’s pretend we are Harry and we are hurrying down the hill (students stand and run in place until teacher says to stop). Notice that your mouth is opened and your breathing out a puff of air - /h, /h/, /h/, we are out of breath. Hold your hand in front of your mouth. Can you feel the air?
Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word hat. Say it slowly with me and listen for the out of breath sound. Hhhh-aaa-t. One more time: Hhhh-aaa-t. Put your hand in front of your mouth. I feel the air! I can hear the out of breath sound in the word hat.
Let’s try a tongue tickler (on poster). “Happy Harry is Hungry for Hamburgers.” Everybody say it together. Now say it again, but this time stretch out the /h/ sound at the beginning of the words. “Hhhhappy Hhhharry is Hhhungry for Hhhamburgers.” Try it one more time, but this time break it off the word: “/h/ appy /h/ arry is /h/ ungry for /h/ amburgers.”
(Have students take out primary paper and pencil) Now lets learn how to print letter Hh. Lets write an upper case H. First, place your pencil on the rooftop. Pull down from the rooftop to the sidewalk to make a straight line. Move over a small space to the right and draw another line from the rooftop to the sidewalk, and then connect the two lines through the fence. Now lets print a lowercase letter h. A lowercase h reminds me of a person running. Place your pencil on the rooftop and pull down to the sidewalk, then bounce back up to the fence and curve back down to the sidewalk. I can’t wait to see the H’s that you’ve made! (teacher will walk around and check each H, then have the children to practice printing more H’s).
Call on students to answer the questions and have them tell how they know the answer is correct: Do you hear /h/ in had or mad? Hop or pop? House or mouse? Lets see if you can feel the /h/ air coming from your mouth in some more words. Breath like out of breath Harry if you hear /h/ in: Honey, kite, hippo, red, cake, hello.
Say: Let’s look at our alphabet book, Hungry Hen. Listen and breath like out of breath Harry when you hear /h/ while I’m reading the book. In this book there is a hungry little hen who eats and eats all day long. There is a cunning little fox that watches little hen everyday and would love to eat her, but keeps telling himself “If I just wait one more day she will be even bigger..” until one day something happens. Lets read to see what happens to hungry hen and the cunning fox. After the read aloud say: “What were some of the words that you heard that made the /h/ sound?” Can you think of any other animals or items on a farm that start with the /h/ sound? After thinking a few minutes, I want you to draw a picture of another farm animal or something on a farm that starts with the /h/ sound. Write the name of the animal or thing under it after you draw and color it.”
Show HAND and model how to decide if it is hand or stand. Remember that the h tells me to breath like out of breath harry, /h/, this this word is hhh-and, hand. I’m going to let you try some on your own now: HAT: sat or hat? HOOK: look or hook? TUCK: tuck or huck? MOP: mop or hop?
For the assessment, hand the worksheet out. Students are to decide which pictures begin with the letter h and draw a line from the letter h to the pictures. Afterwards, they can color the pictures. While students work on this, the teacher can call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step 8.

Resources:

Book: Waring, Richard. Hungry Hen. HarperCollins Books, 2001. Print.

Assessment Worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/h-begins1.htm

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