Harry and Henry Huff and Puff With H

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /h/, the phoneme represented by h. Students will learn to identify /h/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (a dog panting), 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: Primary paper and pencil; board/piece of paper displaying tongue tickler, “Hungry Harry Hopes for Help!”; picture of “hungry harry”; Hilda Hen’s Happy Birthday (HMH Books for Young Readers, 1995), assessment worksheet (link below); word cards with hungry, fall, hot, dig, hat, howling, box, fog, bake and home.

 

Procedures:

1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. Sometimes it is hard to learn what letters stand for- the mouth moves we make as we say words. Today, we are going to discover and work on spotting the mouth move /h/ and the letter h. The letter h looks like an exhausted dog who has his tongue out, and /h/ sounds like the noises a tired dog would make after running around.

            H looks like a dog:

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Let’s pretend you are a dog that just ran a lot and dug a deep hole to burry your bone: /h/, /h/, /h/. [stick your tongue out and make panting/huff and puff] What your mouth does your mouth do? Notice that your mouth is opened and as you breathe out the /h/ sound forms. There’s another way you can make the /h/ sound too! Try it together with me, put your hand up to your mouth a breathe. It will make the /h/ sound too! Try it with me!

 

3. Now, I am going to teach you how to find the letter /h/ in the word home. I’m going to stretch my hand out in a super slow motion and I want you to listen for the tired dog /h/. hh—o --- mm---e. Slower: hhh---o-mmm—e. There you go! I felt my breath coming out of my mouth with the first letter of the word! I can hear the tired dog /h/ in my hand.

 

4. Let’s try a tongue tickler and listen for the /h/ sound. “Hungry Harry Hopes for Help!” Now say it again, and this time I want you to stretch out the /h/ at the beginning of the words. “Hhhhungry Hhhhharry Hhhhhopes for Hhhhhelp!” Try it again, and this time separate the /h/ sound from the word: /h/ungry /h/arry /h/opes for /h/elp.

 

5. [Have the students take out primary paper and pencil.] We use the letter H to spell /h/. Lets write the lowercase h. Draw a line from the rooftop down to the sidewalk then from the sidewalk hop back up towards the fence and curve back down to the sidewalk, make a "c" shape. Now, lets learn to write an uppercase H. First, go down from the rooftop to the sidewalk make a straight line. Then move over a little space and draw another line from the rooftop to the sidewalk and then connect the two lines through the fence. Now, after I put a smile on it, I want you to make just eight more that look just like the Hh.

 

6. I am going to call on a few students to answer which word they hear the sound /h/ in. Do you hear /h/ in hungry or fall? Howling or bake? Dig or hot? Say: Now, I will read you a few words and if you hear /h/, act like you are panting like a tired dog. hot, dig, hat, howling, box, horse, bake and home.

 

7. Say: Now, let’s look at an alphabet book called Hilda Hen’s Happy Birthday. This book tells us about a hen named Hilda who is excited about her birthday. Hilda tells herself that she finds continually finds gifts from different animals as she walks to the barnyard. Little does Hilda know, the gift that she keeps finding aren’t gifts from other animals. Lets read to find out what the animals are doing to do with Hilda the hen who is stealing her own birthday gifts! Lets read and find out what happens!

After they read aloud: “what words did you hear that made the /h/ sound from the story that stood out to you?” Can you think of any other animals that start with a /h/ sound? Now, can each of you think of a silly tongue tickler with words that start with the letter h. Now, can each student get out a piece of paper and draw a picture of whatever animal you thought of and write the name of the animal underneath the picture you draw.  

 

8. Show HOT and model how to decide if it is hot or dot. The H tells me to pant like a tired dog, /h/, so this word is hhhh-o-t hot. You try some: HEAT: heat or beat? HOG: log or hog? HIT: hit or mit? HAND: land or hand?

 

9. For assessment, a worksheet will be distributed to each student. The worksheet has pictures of four items that have the /h/ sound and begin with the letter h. Then, I will call on students individually to read the phonetic cue words from #8.

 

Resources:

 

Assessment worksheet:

http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/learning-letters/h.htm

 

Resource of another H lesson:

Heard, Jami: “Run a Mile with H” https://sites.google.com/site/missheardsresearchreading/home/run-a-mile-with-h

 

Book:

Wormell, Mary. Hilda Hen’s Happy Birthday. Voyager Books, 1996.

Print.

 

 

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