The Huffing "H"
EL Lesson Plan
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /h/, the phoneme represented by H. Students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (running out of breath) and the letter symbol H, 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; chart with "Harry had a horrible headache and hated to hear Henry howl"; Hot at the Dam book; drawing paper and crayons; word cards with HOG, HIT, FEET, HILL, SORT, and HIDE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/.
Procedures:
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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/ sounds like you are huffing as you run and H looks like you are running from the starting line to the finish line.
2. Let's pretend you are running, /h/, /h/, /h/. [Pantomime running by swinging arms] Open your mouth up wide and exhale warm air. When we say /h/, we blow out air with our mouths open.
3. Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word hat. I'm going to stretch hat out in super slow motion and listen for my running breath. Hhh-aa-ttt. There it was! I felt my warm air blowing out of my open mouth. I can feel the running /h/ in hat.
4. Let's try a tongue twister [on chart]. "Harry had a horrible headache and hated to hear Henry howl". Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of the words. "Hhhharry hhhhhad a hhhhorrible hhhheadache and hhhhated to hhhhhear Hhhhhenry hhhhowl" Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/H/arry /h/ad a /h/orrible /h/eadache and /h/ated to /h/ear /H/enry /h/owl.”
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter H to spell /h/. Capital H looks like you starting a race at the starting line and running to the finish line at the end. Let's write the uppercase letter H. Start at the rooftop and draw your starting line all the way down to the sidewalk. Then start running across the fence and connect it with your finish line starting at the rooftop going all the way to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody's H. After I put a check on it, I want you to make nine more just like it. For our little or lowercase h, we will start at the rooftop and draw a line straight down. Then we make a little hump and end back on the sidewalk. Make nine more just like this and I will come check your work.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /h/ in hot or cold? Her or girl? Hat or cap? Home or roof? Hate or love? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Run in place really fast if you hear the /h/: Hope, happened, to, love, Holly’s, hippie, outfit.
7. Say: "Let's look this book called Hot at the Dam. It’s about these four friends that go to play at a really cool place called a dam that keeps water in one place. Let’s read more to see what these friends do at the dam." Read book focusing on /h/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /h/. Ask them to use two different /h/ words to draw and color a picture identifying the objects that start with /h/. For example, Henry on a hill or hopping over hot lava. Display their work.
8. Show HOT and model how to decide if it is hot or dot: The H tells me to run really fast, /h/, so this word is hhh-ot, hot. You try some: HIT: hit or fit? HOME: home or roam? HIND: hind or mind? HILL: hill or fill?
9. For assessment, call students individually to read new phonetic cue words.
References:
Veronica Angel, Hot at the Dam, Raz Kids, New York, 2002.
Dr. Bruce Murray, Making Sight Words, Auburn University, Linus Publications, 2002.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/travels.html
