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

​

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Henry’s horse has heavy hooves"; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with HAM, HEN, HAT, MEET, HAY, KELP, and HOST; assessment worksheet practicing writing the letter H and writing words with /h/ (URL below).

 

Procedures:

1. 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 /h/. We spell /h/ with letter H. A lowercase h looks like a hound standing tall, and /h/ sounds like the huff of a tired hound.

 

2. Let's pretend to huff out loud like we are a tired hound, /h/, /h/, /h/. [Pantomime huffing] Notice where your breath is coming out from. Push your breath out from back of your throat like you’re pushing out air from your lungs. (Opening mouth and huffing air out). When we say /h/, we huff air out from our lungs through the back of our throat.

 

3. Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word hum. I'm going to stretch hum out in super slow motion and listen for the huff. Hhh-u-u-m. Slower: Hhhh-u-u-u-m. There it was! I felt the air come from my lungs when I say the word hum. Huffing /h/ is in hum.

​

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Henry’s Horse has hooves. He walks with his hooves through the hay. After Henry walks with his horse he must clean his hooves. The horse’s hooves are heavy. Here’s our tickler: "Henry’s horse has heavy hooves." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of the words. "Hhhenry’s hhhorse hhhas hhheavy hhhooves.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/h/ enry’s /h/ orse /h/ as /h/ eavy /h/ ooves.

​

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter H to spell /h/. Lowercase h looks like a hound standing tall. Let's write the lowercase letter h. Start at the rooftop, come down, and hump over. I want to see everybody's h. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

​

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /h/ in card or hard? foot or hand? hot or cold? mind or hind? honk or stomp? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Huff like a hound if you hear /h/: the, hungry, furry, hug, ham, pink, hat, pale, harp, hippo.

​

7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a silly hen wearing a hat on his head!" Read page 20, drawing out /f/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /h/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like Hippity-hoppity-hoopity, or Holler-heffer-hangly. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.

​

8. Show HAM and model how to decide if it is ham or pan: The H tells me to huff like a hound /h/, so this word is hhh-am, ham. You try some: HEN: hen or men? HAT: hat or mat? MEET: meet or heat? HAY: hay or pay? KELP: help or kelp? HOST: most or host?

​

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students circle the lowercase letter h or capital letter H from a group of letters. They will then practice writing the upper and lowercase forms of the letter. Last, they will trace some words that begin with h. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

 

 

 

Reference: Murray, Dr. Bruce; The Reading Genie.  http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/.l 

Christensen, Emily; "Slither like a Snake with S". https://emilybchristensen.wixsite.com/beginningreading/emergent-literacy

 

Assessment worksheet: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/alphabet/letter-h-practice.pdf?up=1466611200

 

Click here for a link to the Reading Genie's Communication Index.

​