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Husky huffing.jpeg

Huff Like a Husky with H
Emergent Literacy Design
Hannah Proctor

Rationale: The goal of this lesson is to help children identify /h/, the phoneme represented by H. Students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning the sound analogy of panting like a dog with its head out of the window, and the letter symbol H, practice detecting /h/ in words, and use phoneme awareness with /h/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Materials: Primary paper; pencil; PowerPoint; copy paper; crayons, markers, or colored pencils; Henry’s Awful Mistake by Robert Quakenbush (Dutton Children’s Books, 1981); assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/ (URL below)

Procedures:

  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 the letter H. H sounds like a dog panting with its head out of the window of a car.

  2. Let’s pretend to be dogs panting, /h/, /h/, /h/. [Pantomime dog panting] Do you notice how your mouth is moving? When we say /h/, our mouths are open, and we breathe out.

  3. Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word hop. I’m going to stretch hot out in super slow motion and listen for the sound of a dog panting. Hhh-o-o-o-ppp. Slower: hhh-o-o-o-ppp. There it was! I felt my mouth open, and I was breathing out. /h/ is in hop.

  4. Now let’s try a tongue tickler [on PowerPoint slide]. Harry was a husky who had been waiting all day for his dinner. His owner brought home ham and put it on the table, and Harry decided he wanted some. He jumped on the table and ate it all. Here’s our tickler: “Harry the hungry husky had some ham.” Let’s all say it three times together. Now let’s say it again, but this time stretch out the /h/ at the beginning of the words. “Hhharry the hhhungry hhhusky hhhad some hhham.” Awesome! This time, break it off the word: “/h/arry the /h/ungry /h/usky /h/ad some /h/am.” Great job!

  5. [Ask students to take out primary paper and pencil]. The letter H is used to spell /h/. Capital H looks like a super tall bed. Let’s write the lowercase letter h. Start at the rooftop and go to the sidewalk. Once you get to the sidewalk go up to the fence, round the edge, and go back down to the sidewalk. It should look like a lowercase l, /l/, attached to a lowercase n, /n/. I want to take a look at everyone’s h! Once I come around and put a sticker on your paper, I want you to see if you can write an h 5 more times.

  6. Say: Next, let’s write the capital letter H. Start at the rooftop and go to the sidewalk. Then, leave some space and start at the rooftop and go to the sidewalk again. After you have those two lines, draw a straight line across the fence to connect the two lines. It should look like two lowercase l’s, /l/, attached by a straight rope. I want to look at everyone’s capital H now, and once I put another sticker on your paper, I want you to try and write 5 more capital H’s!

  7. Say: Now let’s practice some! Do you hear /h/ in cold or hot? Happy or sad? Chicken or horse? Pants or hat? Hippo or giraffe? Say: Now let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Pant like a dog if you hear /h/: The, happy, horse, ran, all, day, and, had, heaps, of, hay.

  8. Say: “Let’s look at a book with some /h/ words.” [Pull out Henry’s Awful Mistake]. “This book is about a duck named Henry who is trying to make dinner for his friend, but in the middle of cooking he sees an ant. How is he going to handle an ant being in his kitchen? Let’s read to find out, and let’s see if you can find all of the words with /h/ in them.” After reading, ask them to draw all the things that they can think of that have the sound /h/. Ask them to turn to the person next to them and show them all their drawings.

  9. Show HOP and model how to decide if it is hop or top: Remember, the H looks like a really tall bed and tells me to pant like a dog, /h/, so this word is hhh-op, hop. Now you try some – HORSE: horse or course? HOG: log or hog? MOUSE: house or mouse? HAT: mat or hat? JAM: ham or jam?

  10. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with H.

References:

Assessment worksheet: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-h_WFQTT.pdf

Peyton James, Huff like a Hot Hound with H. https://sites.google.com/view/peytonjames/emergent-literacy-design

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/

Robert Quackenbush, Henry’s Awful Mistake, Dutton Children’s Books, 1981

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