Beat the Drum with D
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /d/, the phoneme represented by D. Students will learn to recognize /d/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (beating a drum) and the letter symbol D, practicing finding /d/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /d/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: chart with “Dora’s done doing dishes”; primary paper and pencil; drawing paper and crayons; word cards with: DIG, DRAW, DICE, DOLL, DAD, and DONE; Danny and the Dinosaurby Syd Hoff; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /d/ (https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-d_WFFZB.pdf?up=1466611200).
Procedures:
-
Say: Our written language is a secret code. We can sometimes get lost on learning what letters stand for—the way we move our mouth when we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /d/. We spell /d/ with the letter D. D looks like a drum you would beat and /d/ sounds like we are beating a drum.
-
Let’s pretend to beat our drum, /d/, /d/, /d/. Pay attention to where your tongue is. (touching the middle of the roof of your mouth). When we say /d/, we bring our tongue to the middle of the roof of our mouth and then drop it down.
-
Let me show you how to find /d/ in the word doll. I’m going to stretch out the word draw in super slow motion and listen for my beating drum. Ddd-o-ll. Slower now, ddd-ooo-ll, that’s it!! I can feel my tongue touching my roof of my mouth and dropping down.
-
Let’s try a tongue tickler that is written on our chart. Dora has the chore that of washing the dishes and she is unable to go outside to play until they are all clean. After her homework, Dora finally finishes washing all the dishes, so now she gets to play outside. Here is our tickler: Dora’s done doing dishes. Everyone say it together now, and let’s stretch out the the /d/ at the beginning of the words. “ Dddddora’s ddddone dddddoing ddddishes.” Try it again and this time we’re going to break off each word: “/d/ ora’s /d/one /d/oing /d/ishes.”
-
[Students will need primary paper and pencil for this task.] We use letter D to spell /d/. Capital D looks like a drum. Let’s write the lowercase letter d. Start with a c and write a straight line down to close it. I want to see everyone’s d.I will walk around and put a smiley face on your work and then I want you to try 9 more on your own.
-
Let’s see if we can listen for our letter din some words. I will call on students to answer which word they hear din. Do you hear /d/ in wateror dirt?drinkor pink? foodor juice? Let’s see if you all spot the /d/ sound in some words. Beat your drum if you hear /d/: The, dark, drooling, dog, ate, his, delicious, food.
-
We are going to look at the book Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff. In this book, Danny goes to a museum and sees all sorts of interesting things they have there. Then he runs into this huge dinosaur. He thinks dinosaurs are so cool and he wants one so bad. The dinosaur offers him a ride, and we will have to read the rest to see what happens with Danny and the dinosaur on their ride. We will read this book and beat our drums as we hear the /d/ sound. They will then get to draw their own dinosaur and name it. The name will have to start with the /d/ sound. Their work will be displayed.
-
Show DOGand model how to decide if it is dog or log: The D tells me to beat my drum, /d/, so this word is ddd-og, dog. You try some: DAD: dador ram? DEER: deerorrear? DEAL: dealor real? DAY: dayor say?
-
For assessment, hand out the worksheet. Students will color in pictures of objects that have a /d/. Then they will be called on to read the words in step 8.
Resources:
Mackenzie Skinner, Flossing Fun with F.
https://mackenzieskinner8.wixsite.com/website-2
Assessment worksheet:
https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-d_WFFZB.pdf?up=1466611200
Click here to go to the Communications Index
