Gulping Gallons of G’s

Emergent Literacy Lesson Plan

By Clarice Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rationale:

                Children will learn to identify /g/ in spoken and written language, represented by the phoneme G. To begin, they will learn a meaningful representation using /g/ as a gulping sound and the gesture of holding a drink up to their mouths and gulping. In order to practice written and spoken phoneme awareness, there will be oral practice of finding /g/ in words and phonetic cue reading cards. Finally, there will be an assessment to assess their understanding of the phoneme /g/.

Materials:

                Primary paper and pencil; tongue tickler poster (“Gary was glad to play games in grandmother’s green garden); video of g songs; phonetic cue word cards reading GAIN, SPUN, FROG, GOLD, SMALL, GIVE;

Procedures:

• Say: In order to understand the English language, we must first learn what letters stand for and how they can be recognized. The important part of learning letters sounds is understanding the way our mouth works when we say /g/. We use the letter G to spell /g/. When we make the sound /g/, it sounds like gulping, taking huge drinks.

• We’re going to practice making our /g/ sound by pretending to drink. /g/ /g/ /g/ [make sounds and gesture of gulping]. Look at how our mouth moves. It is open and your tongue bends at the back of the mouth in order to push the air from our vocal cords and between the teeth.

• Now, we’re going to practice finding /g/ in words. Let’s start with big. I’m going to stretch the word super slow and I want you to watch the way my mouth moves and listen for the gulping sound. B-bb-i-i-i-g-g. Did you hear it? Where? Now I’ll do it slower. B-bbb-i-i-i-g-g-g. Where did you hear the gulping?

• Next, we’re going to say our tongue tickler [on poster]. Make sure you pay attention to the way your mouth moves when you say the words that have /g/ in them. “Gary was glad to play games in grandmother’s green garden.” Let’s say that three times to together. Now we’re going to stretch out our /g/ sound and make our gulping gesture when you make it. G-g-gary was g-g-g-glad to play g-g-games in g-g-grandmother’s g-g-g-green g-g-g-garden. Next, we’re going to break up our g words. /G/ ary was /g/ lad to play /g/ ames in /g/ randmother’s /g/ reen /g/ arden.

• I’m going to say some words and I want you to find the /g/ sound in each of them. Say: “Do you hear /g/ in..”

• Green or seen?

• Don or fog?

• Pulp or gulp?

• In order to recognize the letter g in our words, we’re going to look at some words and recognize if they have /g/ or not.

• Show GAIN; Say: is this gain or rain?

• Show SPUN; Say: is this spun or gun?

• Show FROG; Say: is this frog or grog?

• Show GOLD; Say: is this gold or cold?

• Show SMALL; Say: is this small or gall?

• Show GIVE; Say: is this give or live?

• Now we’re going to watch songs about the letter g in order to practice our listening and looking for G and /g/. When you hear /g/, I want you to make your gulping gesture as we sing along.

 

Assessment:

 

Using primary paper, say words out loud and have them write down the ones with /g/. Show them written words and have them write the ones with /g/.

Resources:

               

Storybots, ABC Song: The Letter G, “Gimme G” by Storybots
 

Have Fun Teaching, Letter G Song
 

Lydia Moore, Gulping Grape Juice with G
 

Catherine Gardner, Gulping with G
 

Annamarie Merritt, Gulping with Letter G