Hurling Hoops with the letter H
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /h/, the phoneme represented by H. b Students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (brushing teeth) and the letter symbol H, practice finding /h/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /f/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.c
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Henry Happily Hops Home"; drawing paper and crayons; Mary Wordmell’s Hilda Hen’s Scary Night (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt PublishingCompany, 1997); word cards with HOG, HIT, HAT, HAND, andHUNT; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/ (URL below).d
Procedures:e 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. H looks like a house, and /h/ sounds like a panting animal.
2. Let's pretend to be a dog, /h/, /h/, /h/. Notice how your mouth is open and your tongue closing your throat a bit? When we say /h/, we blow air out from the back of our throat and above the tongue.
3. Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word Grasshopper. I'm going to stretch grasshopper out in super slow motion and listen for the panting sound. G-r-a-a-s-s-h-h-h-o-p-p-er. Slower: g-r-a-a-s-s-h-h-h-o-p-er There it was! I felt the air from the back of my throat. Panting /h/ is in Grasshopper.g
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Hellen broke her foot, which causes her to hobble. She also has been very sad because she can’t play her favorite sport. She has to walk all the way up a hill to get to her house. Here’s our tickler: "How hollow Helen Hull hobbles on hills!" Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of the words. "HHHow hhhollow HHHelen HHHull hhhhobbles on hhhills!" Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/h/ow /h/ ollow /h/ elen /h/ ull /h/ obbles on /h/ ills.h
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter H to spell /h/. Capital H looks like a house. Then go to the fence line and make a little hump like “n” from the line 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.i
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /h/ in work or hook? hop or bye? my or hit? ham or dip? homeor sore? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Shoot a basketball if you hear /h/: The, bunny, Henry, Hellen, hopped, over, to, shoot, hoops, with, Hamilton.h
7. Say: "Alright now we are going to read Hilda Hen’s Scary Night! What kind of scary things that start with the letter /h/ do you think she will see?" Read book to students. Ask children if they can think of other words with /h/. Ask them to draw something Hilda saw that started with an H. Display their work.h
8. Show HOP and model how to decide if it is hop or bop: The H tells me to pant and open my mouth, /h/, so this word is hhhh-op, hop. You try some: HOT: hot or pot? HIT: hit or fit? HIND: hind or mind? HEAD: hitch or pitch? HOP: hop or bop?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color a picture that begin with H (House, Horse, Hat). Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8. Also have students present their pictures and display them on the wall.
Reference: Sarah Jane Brock, Fishing Frenzy.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/brockel.html.l
Assessment worksheet: https://kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/learning-letters/h.htm