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Emergent Literacy

Emergent Literacy:

Growl with R

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /r/, the phoneme represented by R. Students will learn to recognize /r/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (growling lion) and the letter symbol R, practice finding /r/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /r/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

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Materials:

  • Primary paper and pencil

  • printed out text with words “Robby raced the red rabbit"

  •  Various objects that represent words:  a fake rose, the teacher’s hand, a rock, a toy truck, etc., index cards with the corresponding words (ROSE, HAND, ROCK, TRUCK, etc.)

  •  Picture of lion printed out: I used this one of Simba from Lion King! 

        https://www.deviantart.com/footiepjs/art/Little-Simba-Roaring-313188231

  •  Safety scissors

  • Glue

  • a copy of Dr. Seuss' s ABC (Random House, 1963)

  • "Letter R Sort"Beginning and Ending with R printout 

       https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-R-Sort-3523686

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Procedures:

 1. Say: Our written language can sometimes be tough to figure out. WE have to use our mouths to make and form words so we can talk with each other.  . Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /r. We spell /r/ with letter R, and a capital R looks like a lion, and /r/ stands for a growling lion.  

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2. Let’s pretend that we are fierce, strong lions. Someone is trying to come up to touch us but we are going to scare them away with our growling! /r/, /r/ /r/. Let’s put our hands up to look like claws to go with our growling. The round top part of the capital letter R looks kind of like a big, round lion’s mane. When we make the sound /r/, our tongue pushes backwards in our mouth and touches the roof our mouth a little bit.   

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3. I’m going to show you how to find /r/ in the word draw, as in, "I like to draw pictures". I’m going to stretch out the word like a piece of gum. Can you stretch the word with me? Listen to the word and listen for when you hear the lion growl /r/. D-rrr-awww. Did you hear it? Yes, the letter R,/r/, is in the word draw.

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4. Let's try a tongue tickler to test out our letter R.  Robby loves to run very fast and he always chooses different animals to race against each day. All the animals have different colors, and today, “Robby Raced the Red Rabbit”. Say that phrase with me a few times. Now this time, say it again and we are going to use our growling /r/ and stretch our words like gum. Rrrrobby rrraced the rrrrred rrrrrabbit. This time, say it again, and we are going to break the R off the word: "/R/ obby /r/ aced the /r/ ed /r/abbit. 

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5. [Give students primary lined paper and a pencil] The letter R says /r/. Let’s make a lowercase r. Start at the middle and make a line all the way down to the bottom. Then come back up the same line almost all the way to the middle line and make a little round umbrella to the side on the right of the line. Make a whole row of r’s when you are done.

6. I’m going to show you different objects and we are going to work together to see if these words have the letter R in them. I’ll show you an example, and then we will look at the cards with the words on them together. [Show the fake flower and then present the index card with ROSE written on it, repeat for other objects] Do we hear a growling R in this word? [Call on students to identify object and try to sound out word]. What about my HAND? Hhh-aaa-nnnn-dd. No, growling R in that one! What about this toy TRUCK? T-rrrr-uuuu-ckkk. Yes!

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7. Say: Let's look at an alphabet book for some more examples of our growling R! Dr. Seuss always has such funny sentences about different letters of the alphabet. Lets see what kind of silly sentences we find for the letter R! I'm going to read this page aloud, and every time you hear the letter R I want you to make your claws and bare your teeth and growl along, /R/!

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8. Say: Now we are going to see where these words have growling /r/ R in them. Can you hear the R at the beginning of the word or the end of the word? [have students cut up the picture squares or cut them yourself and give them to the kids and have them glue the word to the correct side]. Check around to make sure your students understand correctly, make sure that they are understanding the sound r makes and where it goes on the sorting sheet before they glue it down completely.

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References:

  • Related Lesson: Bruce Murray, Brush Your Teeth with F

          https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/emergent-literacy

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