Huffing and Puffing with H
Emergent Literacy
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Rationale: This lesson plan is designed to help students recognize /h/, the phoneme that represents the letter H. Students will learn to recognize the phoneme /h/ by practicing meaningful representations such as, making the “h” sound when scoffing about something or practicing saying “huh” like you are confused.
Materials: pencil, primary paper, crayons, Tongue Tickler: “Hungry hippos had hot dogs and hummus”, the book Horton Hears a Who” by Dr. Seuss, word cards [hat, hot, how, hard], assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/.
Procedures:
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Begin by saying that our alphabet has many letters and our language can make very interesting sounds! Sometimes, it can be difficult to understand what type of sound a letter makes. So, I broke it down for you, and we are going to begin with the letter H. We are going to recognize the way that our mouth looks and feels when we pronounce the letter “H”. We can pronounce /h/ by the sound our mouth makes when we take a bite of something too hot.
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Say: When we bite into something that is too hot, our mouths say /h/, /h, /h/ to try and cool off the hot food. We also say something like “Ahh, that food was way too hot” using /h/ in “hot” to warn everyone that the food is too hot to eat. So, you try. Say you took a big sip of your hot chocolate, and it starts to burn your tongue! What are you going to do to cool down the hot chocolate without spitting it out?
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Say: Now I am going to help you find the /h/ in the word “HAT”. So, I am going to say it very slowly and let's see if you can see where the /h/ is. Hhhaatt, (now even slower) hhhhhhhaatttt. Did the beginning of that word sound like what you do when you are trying to cool down your hot soup?
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Say; Now we are going to try a tongue tickler! Now these words are going to be a little tricky to say all together but that is what makes it fun! Now repeat after me, “Harry the hungry, hungry hippo is happily eating ham in his house”. Great, now let's try again and stretch out the /h/ sound in each of the words. “Hhhhhhungry hhhhippos hhhhad hhhhot dogs and hhhhummus.” Great, now let’s try again and this time we are going to take the /h/ off of each word. /H/ungry /H/ippos /H/ad /H/ot dogs and /H/ummus.
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Say: Now we are going to take out our pencil and paper. We can write /h/ using the letter H. The letter H looks like a sideways capital I in a way. But today we are going to write a lowercase h. First, we are going to start at the rooftop and draw a straight line to the sidewalk. Then go to the fence line and make a little hump like an n from the line down to the sidewalk.
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Say: Now I am going to say a few different words and you are going to tell me which one you hear our /h/ in. Do you hear /h/ in hit or sit? Do you hear /h/ in hat or bat? Do you hear /h/ in help or yelp. Do you hear /h/ in happy or yappy? Now wave your hand in front of your mouth like you’re are cooling something off when I say /h/ in a word. Are you ready? Heart, Hip, Take, Hope, Grass, Hippo, Happy
References: H for Hot, hot, hot (By: Rachel Paradise) https://rpp0010.wixsite.com/my-site-2
Assessment Worksheet: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-H-Worksheet-4375826
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Horton-Hears-Who-Dr-Seuss/dp/0394800788
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