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Emergent Reader: Lesson Design 

 

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /d/, the phoneme represented by D. Students will learn to recognize /d/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation like knocking on their desk and the letter symbol D, practice finding /d/ in words, and apply their learning with completely a worksheet.

 

Materials:  

  • Poster with the tongue tickler “Let’s go down in the deep, dark den.”

  • Primary paper and pencil

  • Toy basketball goal and ball that you can put on the board or the back of the door.

 

 

Procedures:

  • “I bet you have never really thought about how your mouth moves when you speak – every letter you say has a sound. Today we are going to learn how our mouth moves when we say /d/, this sound is represented with the letter D.

  • “What sound do you hear when I knock on the board?” “Da-da-da” “What about when you ring a doorbell?” “Ding-dong” “What does your tongue do when you say /d/?” “Your tongue touches the roof of your mouth and then comes down to the back of the bottom of your teeth.

  • “Let’s see if we can find /d/ in the word blender. I’m going to put this word into slow motion so we can find the /d/ sound. Bll-en-d-d-d-er, Bl-e-n-d-d-d-d-er. I found it! I felt my tongue on the roof of my mouth!

  • “Now let’s try a tongue tickler! (on poster) “Let’s go down in the deep, dark den” “Now everyone say it together 3 times.” “Every time you hear the /d/ sound I want you to knock on your desk so we can hear the da-da-da sound.” “We are going to say it again and really put the /d/ sound in slow motion.” “Ready? Let’s go d-d-down in the d-d-deep, d-d-dark, d-d-den.” “This time let’s break the /d/ sound off the words: Let’s go /d/own in the /d/eep, /d/ark /d/en.”

  • (Have the students take out primary paper and pencil). “We use the letter D to represent the sound /d/. "Let’s write an uppercase D: start at the rooftop and draw a straight line down to the sidewalk, then draw a half circle connecting the top of the line to the bottom. Now let’s draw a lowercase d: draw a straight line from the rooftop to the sidewalk, then draw a little c on the left side of the straight line.” “I want to see that everyone knows how to draw the letter d in uppercase and lowercase form. When I see that you have mastered it, I will put a sticker on your paper.”

  • “Now let’s play a basketball review game. Get in a line, I am going to give you two words and you tell me which word you hear the /d/ sound in, when you get the answer right you get to d-d-dunk the basketball into the goal.” Example of questions: Do you hear the /d/ sound in the word dog or cat? Do you hear the /d/ sound in the word cup or bed?

  • For our assessment, my students will complete the worksheet. Students are to answer the questions on the worksheet and then color the pictures. I will be walking around the room and helping the students who are still having trouble.

 

References:

http://mjm0065.wixsite.com/melissamurphree/emergent-literacy

Clipart: http://worldartsme.com/images/dog-burying-bones-clipart-1.jpg

Worksheet: https://www.myteachingstation.com/vault/2599/web/articles/Phonics-Letter-Beginning-Sound-D.jpg

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The Dog Digs in the Dirt for the Letter "D"
Elyssa Hicks 
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