Play The Drums With D

Emergent Literacy Design by Mallie Stone

Rationale:

This lesson should help children identify /d/, which is the phoneme represented by D. Students should learn to recognize /d/ in spoken words by learning how their tongue touches the roof of their mouth when they say that they are dropping the end of the drumstick on the drum. They will learn the letter symbol D. Students will practice finding /d/ in words, point out objects that starts with /d/, and read literature that will help them learn both the phoneme and letter symbol for D.

Materials:

Chart containing Drew dives deep down
Primary paper
Pencil
Dad's Lost Hat by Bridgett Wilson
Large notecards with HAD, DRIP, HARD, ROUND, WORLD
Drawing paper and utensils (crayons, colored pencils, markers)
Assessment worksheet

Procedures:

Say: The tricky part to cracking our written language is learning what letters stand for. Today we are going to learn about the letter D. We’re going to focus on the way our mouth moves when we pronounce the letter D, which says /d/. We’re going to imagine that we are in a marching band, and we all play the instrument that’s big and round and requires sticks to play – if you’re thinking of a drum, you’re right!
The sound that a drum makes when you drop the end of the drumstick is /d/. [Demonstrate imaginarily beating on a drum] If this was a real drum, it would sound like /d/, /d/, /d/, /d/, /d/. When we say /d/, the tip of our tongue quickly touches the front of the roof of our mouth.
Let me show you how to find /d/ in the word round. I’m going to stretch round out in slow motion and listen for my drumbeats. Rrr-ouu-nd. Slower: Rrr-oouuu-nnnn-ddd. There it is! I felt the tip of my tongue touch the front of the roof of my mouth. I can feel the /d/ in round.
Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. Drew dives deep down. Everybody say it three times together [wait]. Now repeat the sentence, and this time, stretch the /d/ at the beginning of each word. Dddrew dddives dddeep dddown. Try it once more, and break the /d/ off of the word this time: /d/rew /d/ives /d/eep /d/own.
[Instruct students to take out their primary paper and pencil]. We use letter D to spell /d/. Capital D looks like a cookie that’s been cut in half. Let’s write the lowercase letter d. Start just below the fence line. Begin by making a lowercase c, and continue the bottom of the c by making a line that reaches from the rooftop to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody’s d. After I put a smiley face on your paper, I want you to make nine more just like it.
[Call on students to answer and tell how they knew]: Do you hear /d/ in grin or hand? drip or slow? hard or soft? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the tongue move /d/ in some words. Beat on your drum if you hear /d/: and, hit, rat, drag, grand, sniff, dart, box, knock, old, inside, drained.
Say: Let’s look at an alphabet book. Bridgett Wilson writes about the journey that a dad's hat takes once it's blown off of his head by the wind! Can you guess who finds it and whether or not the dad gets it back? [Read page 13, drawing out /d/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /d/. Ask them to make up a silly animal name like Dappen-dipper-doo. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly animal. Display their work.]
Show DOG, and model how to decide if it is hog or dog: The D tells me to beat on my drum, /d/, so this word is ddd-og, dog. You try some [use large notecards with the following words]: HAD- had or hat? DRIP- drip or slip? HARD- harm or hard? ROUND- frown or round? WORLD- world or swirl?
For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with D. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from procedure 8.

Reference:

Wilson, Bridgett. Dad's Lost Hat. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/teacherbooks.html

Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/d-begins2.htm

Jacquelyn Johnson. Breathe like a dog with H. https://sites.google.com/site/jjreadinglesson/home/breather-like-a-dog-with-h

Click here to return to the Edifications index.