Rationale: This emergent literacy lesson will focus on children identifying the phoneme represented for L, /l/. Students will learn to recognize /l/ in spoken language by learning it with a meaningful representation, a loud lion and the letter symbol L. They will practice learning /l/ in words and apply phoneme awareness with /l/ in phonetic cue reading by answering questions similar to, “Do you hear /l/ in like or bike?” They will figure out which of the two rhyming words start with /l/. 

 

Materials: Primary Paper, pencil, lion stickers, a print out of the tongue tickler, chart of “Lilly the lion left her little sister’s lime green locket at the library”; Book: Lee and the Team, Word cards with LION, LUCK, WET, LEG, LAP, LOG.

 

Procedures:

1. I will say: Our written language is like a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for- the mouth moves in a specific way as we say the words. Today we’re going to focus on how the mouth moves with the letter /l/. We spell /l/ with the letter L. We can remember the L for lion by drawing a lion’s mane on top of the L.

2. Let’s pretend we have a loud singing lion, lalala /l/, /l/, /l/. Do you notice where your tongue is? (Showing student where the tongue hits the roof of the mouth) When we say /l/, we lift our tongue to the roof of our mouth.

3. Let me show you how to find /l/ in the word hail. I’m going to stretch hail out in super slow motion and listen for that /l/ sound. Hhh-aaa-iii-lll. Slower: hhh-aaa-iii-lll. There it was! I felt my tongue on the roof of my mouth. Did you? I can feel /l/ when I say hail.

4. Let’s try a tongue twister. Lilly is a lion in Africa who goes to school. Her sister left something very important to her in the library. “Lilly the lion left her little sister’s lime green locket at the library.” Everybody says it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /l/ at the beginning of the words. “Lllllilly the lllion lllleft her lllllittle sister’s lllime green lllocket at the lllibrary.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/L/illy the /l/ion /l/eft her /l/ittle sister’s /l/ime green /l/ocket in the /l/ibrary.

5. (Have students take out primary paper and pencil). We use the letter L to spell /l/. Let’s write the lowercase letter l. We start at the at the rooftop and go straight down to the sidewalk. Let me see everyone's l's! Once I stamp your paper with a lion, I want you to make nine more of those l’s.

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they know. Do you hear /l/ in luck or tuck? Left or right? Big or little? Lap or tap? Lick or tick? Well or dog? Say: let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /l/ in some words. Lick your lips /l/ if you hear /l/: The, lion, has, a, little, sister, named, Lane, who, likes, lime, green, lollipops.

7. Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Lee is the coach of a baseball team. His team is late for the game and is lounging on a tree. All of the sudden a bee lands on a leaf. Read page 7, drawing out /l/ in the word leap. After we finish, the students will get to make up their own silly names for the bee in the book. Say: “After you have thought of a funny name for the bee you will write them down on the paper and draw a picture.” I will display their work.

8. Show Leg and model how to decide if it is leg or arm. The L tells me to have my tongue at the roof of my mouth, /l/ so this word is llll-eg, leg. You try some: LION: Lion or tiger? LIKE: Bike or like? LIZARD: Lizard or frog? LIGHT: Light or fight? FELT: Make or felt?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will color the pictures that begin with L. I will call on students to individually read the phonetic cue words from step 8.  

 

References:

 

Murray, B. Brush Your Teeth with F http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/murrayel.htm

 

Lundey, S. Quacking with Q https://sel0033.wixsite.com/mysite/emergent-literacy

 

Assessment worksheet: https://twistynoodle.com/fill-in-the-missing-letter-l-worksheet/ 

 

Link back to Engagements: http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/engagements/