Madeline Northrop

Rationale:

Students must recognize the correspondence between phonemes and graphemes.  This is a lesson to help students identify the phoneme /h/ represented by the grapheme H. Students will practice identifying /h/ in spoken word and H in written text. They will use a visual representation of laughing to help remember the relationship between H and /h/ We will do a letterbox lesson that focuses on /h/=H and have a decodable book to read afterwords. 

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Materials:

• Decodable book: It is Hot at the Dam

• Have photo of Hippo in a hat

• Primary paper and pencil

• /h/ worksheet 

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Procedure:

1. Say: "Sometimes our alphabet can be pretty tricky to remember because there are a lot of letters and they each have their own sound. Today we’re going to learn about H and what kind of sound it makes."

2. Say: "The letter H can make the /h/ sound just like what we make when we laugh." Now laugh while putting your hands to your stomach like someone might when they laugh really hard. "To say /h/ we open our mouths a little and push out a small amount of air. Let’s try it. Pretend like you just heard a funny joke and put your hands on your stomach as we laugh. “Hahaha!” I’m going to tell a story and every time you hear /h/ put your hands on your stomach like you heard a funny joke."

3. Say: "One day there was a hippo named Harry. He was so funny! He told many jokes and made everyone laugh. Harry loved to hear all his friends say “hahah” when he did silly things. One day he found a super silly hat and got an idea. He went to find his friends and showed them his new hat. They all giggled and said, “Harry the hippo has a hilarious hat!” (As you’re reading show the photo of the hippo in a hat) Now, let’s all grab our stomachs and say, “Harry the hippo looks hilarious in that hat!” repeat 2 times

4. Say: "We’re going to get out our primary paper and write the letter H which is what makes the /h/ sound. Start at the top of your paper and draw a line down, go a space over and draw another line, finally draw a line in the middle to connect the two sides. To draw a lowercase h we’re going to start at the rooftop and draw a straight line to the sidewalk, next draw a curved line to the fence and back down to the sidewalk."

5. Go around and check everyone’s H and ask everyone to check each other’s H and have students show their neighbors. Once they show their neighbors have students grab their stomachs and say "hahaha!"

6. Say: "Now, we will read a book that focuses on the letter H. It is Hot at the Dam"

7. To assess students knowledge of the letter H students will have a worksheet to fill out. It has different images and children color in the images that start with the /h/ sound. 

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References:

Worksheet: http://www.tlsbooks.com/letterh_1.pdf

Photo of hippo: https://st.depositphotos.com/1695366/1394/v/950/depositphotos_13942388-stock-illustration-cartoon-hippo-hat.jpg

Sanford, Lindsay. Running Hard with H: https://sites.google.com/site/sanfordreadinglesson/home/running-hard-with-h