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Hopping for H

Emma-Ruth Boles
erb0060@auburn.edu

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 meaningful representation through hopping in place until tired to make the sound /h/, 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.c


Materials: Primary paper, copy paper (provided by teacher) and pencil; tongue twister chart with "Horses hear hairy hogs hobble home"; colored pencils or crayons; The Man and His Hat by Susan Grimes; flash cards with HOG, HAT, HOP, and HATE; 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 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 horse, and /h/ sounds like being out of breath. To get on a horse, we have to hop to reach the top of the horse. After hopping a few times, we will probably be out of breath and start saying /h/.f

2. Let's pretend to hop on a horse, /h/, /h/, /h/. [Pantomime hoping on a horse] Notice what your mouth is doing? (mouth is open with upper and bottom teeth not touching, and tongue at the bottom of your mouth). When we say /h/, we blow air out of our mouth.f

3. Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word hop. I'm going to stretch hop out in super slow motion and listen to see when it sounds like I am out of breath. Hhh-ooo-pp. Slower: Hhhh-o-o-o-ppp There it was! I felt the air blowing out of my mouth. /h/ is in hopg

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. A horse was standing in the pasture when he heard a very hairy hog trying to go home. The hog was hobbling and he was so tried from his long walk, he started to make the /h/ sound. The horse heard this and was concerned for his friend. Here’s our tickler: "Horses hear hairy hogs hobble home". Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of the words. "Hhhorses hhhear hhhairy hhhogs hhhobble hhhome"." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/h/ orses /h/ ear /h/ airy /h/ ogs /h/ obble /h/ ome.h

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter H to spell /h/. Upper Case H looks like a Horse with its tail straight up in the air. Let's write the lowercase letter h. Start with a line going up and down. Make your pencil go half way up the line, then make it curve down. I want to see everybody's h. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make ten more just like it.i

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /h/ in hello or kind? very or hope? high or can? pop or hop? hay or ready? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Stand in place and hop if you hear /h/: The, hug, shoe, hug, flew, height, and, think, hint, apple.h

7. Say: "Let’s look at the first page of ‘The Man and His Hat’ together." Reading the first page, draw out /h. Ask children if they can think of other words with /h/. [hand out coy paper] Ask them to make up silly hats like a hooting hat and draw a picture of their own silly hat. Display their work.h

8. Show HIM and model how to decide if it is him or jim: The H tells me to sound out of breath, /h/, so this word is hhh-im, him. You try some: HOG: hog or fog? HAT: hat or mat? HOP: hop or top? PIE: lie or pie?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with H. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.k

References: 

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/lessons/tuning/

https://sites.google.com/site/ctrd3710site/home/emergent-literacy-design


Assessment worksheet: https://www.timvandevall.com/letter-h-worksheets/letter-h-worksheet-2/

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Emergent Literacy: Text
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