Huff Like a Dog with H
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Rationale: This lesson will help children recognize /h/ and the phoneme represented by H. Students will learn to identify /h/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (tired dog) 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: plain white paper and pencil, a chart with “Harry the hot hound had ham”, word cards with HIT, HAT, HOP, HAND, PICK, HATE printed and Happy Hiding Hipposby Bobbette McCarthy. Assessment worksheet that identifies /h/ with pictures (URL below).
Procedures: 1. Say: The way we talk is like a secret language. One of the tricks to our language is figuring out what letters stand for and how our mouth moves as we say words. Today with this lesson we are going to learn how the mouth moves for /h/. We spell /h/ with letter H. /h/ sounds like a tired dog huffing.
2. Next we are going to pretend we are dogs that have just played a long game of catch. What sound do dogs usually make when they are worn out? /h/, /h/, /h/, Notice how your mouth is open and air is pushed out from your lungs which makes you huff. Just like how the /h/ sounds when you make it, it also is how a dog sounds when it is out of breath and tired.
3. I am going to show you how to find /h/ in the word half. To do this, I will stretch half out in very slow motion and listen how I sound. Ha-l-f. slower: h-a-l-f . There we go! I feel like I’m taking a deep breath like a huff when I make the /h/ in the beginning of the word half.
4. Let’s now try a tongue tickler (on the printed chart). Harry is a big furry dog. He loves to be outside and his favorite activity every day is getting to play catch with his owner and then gets to eat a treat afterwards. Here is our tongue tickler: “Harry the hot hound had ham” Let’s say it three times out loud. Now this time, say it again but stretch out the /h/ at the start of the words. “Hhhary the hhhot hhhound hhhad hhham.” Try it again and now separate it off from the word: “ /h/arry the /h/ound /h/ad /h/am”
5. (Students are given a piece of paper and a pencil) We use the letter H to spell /h/. First we are going to write the lowercase letter h. Start at the rooftop, come down with it and hump over. I now want to see everyone write a lowercase h on their paper. To write the uppercase H, start at the rooftop and write a straight line all the way down to the sidewalk. Make another straight line just like it beside it with a little bit of space in between them. Connect the two straight lines with a horizontal line right along the fence. After I check both, continue writing five more of the letters.
6. Ask the students how they knew the phoneme and call on them to tell me if they hear /h/ in hand or foot? Heat or Seat? Cold or hot? Hit or kick? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Pant like a dog if you hear /h/ in these words: happy, heart, school, good, hop, hope, talk
7. Now that we know how to write the letter H and the sound it makes, let’s look an alphabet book. In Happy Hiding Hippos, there are a group of friends that are all hippos! They love to play hide-and-seek and decide to play one day while they are in town at the park and enjoy finding the hardest spots to be found. Will all of the hippos be found in town before they must return home? Let’s read to find out. (Read the book aloud and be sure to show all of the pictures on the pages). Now on a piece of paper, draw your favorite hiding spot when you play hide and seek.
8. Show HOT and model how to decide if it is hot or cot. The H tells me to huff like Harry the hound, /h/, so this word is hhh-ot, hot. Now you try some more, Hat: hat or sat? Heat: heat or meat? Heal: heal or seal? Hound: sound or hound?
9. For an assessment, pass out the worksheet. Students color the pictures that start with the letter H. Call on students and ask them individually to read the phonetic cues and phoneme.
References:
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Murray, Bruce. (2012). Making Sight Words.
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Assessment worksheet: https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/h-begins2.htm
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Reference: Autumn McCarley, Huffing Hhttps://afs0024.wixsite.com/mrsmccarley/emergent-literac
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