Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /g/, the phoneme represented by G. Students will learn to recognize /g/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (drinking grape soda) and the letter symbol G, practice finding /g/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /g/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Grace gave green grapes to the guilty gorilla”; drawing paper and crayons; P.D. Eastman’s Go Dog Go (Random House, 1961); word cards with GOT, GET, GO, MEAN, GILL, GAME; assessment worksheet identifying words with /g/ (URL below).
Procedures:
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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 /g/. We spell /g/ with the letter . sounds like you are gulping down a glass of grape soda.
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Let’s pretend to gulp grape soda, /g/, /g/, /g/. [Pantomime drinking soda] Notice where your tongue is? (Point to roof of your mouth). When we say /g/, we push the back of our tongue to the roof of our mouth and push it off.
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Let me show you how to find /g/ in the word . I’m going to stretch out in super slow motion and listen for my gulping. Ss-ll-u-u-gg. Slower: Sss-lll-u-u-u-ggg. There it was! I felt the back of my tongue touch the roof of my mouth and push off. I can feel the gulp /g/ in .
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Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. “Grace gave green grapes to the guilty gorilla.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /g/ at the beginning of the words. “Ggggrace gggave gggreen gggrapes to the ggguilty gggorilla.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/g/ race /g/ ave /g/ reen /g/ rapes to the /g/ uilty /g/ orilla.”
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[Have students take out primary paper and pencil] We use the letter to spell /g/. Capital G looks like a gallon of milk. Let’s write the lowercase . Start at the fence and make a circle down to the sidewalk and back up to the fence. Then draw a line down past the sidewalk and draw a curve (like a fish hook) back up to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody’s . After I put a smiley face on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
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Call on students to answer how they knew: Do you hear /g/ in or ? or ? or ? or ? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /g/ in some words. Gulp your grape soda if you hear /g/: , , , , , , , .
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Say: “Let’s look at a /g/ book. P.D. Eastman writes about all different kinds of dogs like red dogs, dogs in trees, dogs driving cars!” Let’s read and see what activities the dogs take part in. Ask children if they can think of other words with /g/. Ask them to draw a picture of a dog doing a crazy activity. Then have each student write down what their dog is doing with invented spelling. Display their work.
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Show GOT and model how to decide if it is or : The tells me to gulp my grape soda, /g/, so this word is . You try some: GET: get or bet? GO: go or so? MEAN: green or mean? GILL: gill or bill? GAME: game or same?
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For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with /g/. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
References:
Adapted from: “Gulp a Gallon with G” by Claire Koenig http://csk0009.wixsite.com/eportfolio/emergent-literacy
“Brush your teeth with F” by Dr. Bruce Murray http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html
Eastman, P.D. (1961). Go Dog Go. New York: Random House.
Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/g-begins2.htm