ABC
W...W...Whish Goes the Jump Rope
Emergent Literacy
Savannah Duke
Rationale:
This lesson will help the children identify /w/, the phoneme represented by W. Student will be able to recognize /w/ in the spoken word by recognizing a meaningful representation (jumping rope) and the letter symbol W, apply phoneme awareness, and identify /w/ in spoken word.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil to write “Will wants to walk with Wallace the wombat.”; crayons; Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with WET, WAS, WASH, WENT, WAKE and WISH; assessment worksheet identifying /w/ sound (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 /w/. We spell /w/ with letter W. W
sounds like the noise air makes while jumping rope.
2) Let's pretend to jump rope, /w/, /w/, /w/. [Pantomime jumping rope] Notice
the lip movement. When we say /w/, we blow air between our lips and our mouth puckers.
3) Let me show you how to find /w/ in the word twist. I'm going to stretch twist out in
super slow motion and listen for my jump rope. Ttt-w-i-i-i-st. Slower: Ttt-w-w-w-ist.
There it was! I felt my lips pucker and air blow between them. I can feel the jumprope /w/
in twist.
4) Let's try a tongue twister [on chart]. " Will wants to walk with Wallace the wombat." Everybody
say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /w/ at the
beginning of the words. "Wwwill wwwants to wwwalk wwwith Wwwallace the wwwombat." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/w/ ill /w/ ants to /w/ alk /w/ ith /W/ allace the /W/ ombat.
5) [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter W to spell /w/. Let's write the lowercase letter f. Start at the fence. Draw a line down to the sidewalk and back up to the fence. Now without removing your pencil from the paper repeat the action. I want to see everyone’s w. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it!
6) Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /w/ in work or
fun? Walk or talk? With or been? Hole or well? Wish or dream? Say: Let's see if you can spot
the mouth move /w/ in some words. Jump your rope if you hear /w/: The, wild,
worm, crawled, with, the, wooly, caterpillar.
7) "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a funny creature
whose name starts with W. Can you guess?" Read page 53, drawing out /w/. Ask
children if they can think of other words with /w/. Ask them to make up a silly
name like Willy Waterloo, or Waldo Woo. Then have each student
write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of what they think their silly creature will look like. Display their work.
8) Show WET and model how to decide if it is wet or dry: The W tells me to jump my rope, /w/, so this word is www-et, wet. You try some: WASH: wash or clean? WAS: was or had? WAKE: sleep or wake? WALL: tall or wall? SAND: sand or water?
9) For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with W. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/w-begins2.htm
References:
Murray, Bruce: Brush Your Teeth with F
http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/murrayel.htm
Dr. Seuss. “Dr. Seuss’s ABC.” Random House Children’s Books. 1963.
Gilmore, Emma: Z is for Zoe the Zooming Zebra
Handoffs Index:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/Handoffs.html
