Learning h with Hector the Hound
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Rationale: This lesson will help a child to identify the phoneme /h/, a sound that is represented by the letter h. Students will learn to distinguish the letter /h/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters. Through this lesson, a child will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (Hector pants with ‘hhh’) 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.
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Materials:
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Primary paper
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Pencils
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Markers/crayons
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Word card: hippo, home, hot, hush, and hunt
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Chart with “Hector the hound howls at the hen”
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Picture of Hector the hound with letter h
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Assessment worksheet with /h/
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Construction paper
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Book: Hungry Hen by Richard Waring
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​Procedures:
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I will begin by saying, “We are going to learn the letter h and we will work on what it sounds like and how our mouth moves to say /h/. Let me show you how our mouth moves with /h/. The letter h sounds like ‘hhhh’ (e.g., a dog panting while running).
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2. Let’s practice together making the noise Hector the hound makes while running. Let’s move our arms up and down like we are running. Every time we say the /h/ lets raise our hands up and down.” Before we practice together, I will provide a picture of Hector the hound with h (on the bottom of the page).
3. Say: “Your lips are apart while you say /h/ and you are pushing air out. Now let me show how to listen for my /h/ in some words I am about to go over. Listen for Hector’s panting in the word. “Hhhhhhhh- it” I could hear the ‘hhhh’ at the beginning of the word. I could also feel my lips and teeth were apart at the beginning of the word. Now it’s your turn to say hit.” Afterwards, I will let the students read the words from the word cards. Words: hippo, home, hot, hush, and hunt. Before practicing, I may ask the students to practice panting using the phoneme /h/ some more.
4. Next, I will read the students the tongue tickler “Hector runs with h” and stretch out the /h/ at the beginning of every word. (e.g., Hhhhhhector the hhhound hhhhowls at the hhhhen). Afterwards, I will have the student read it with me. When done, I will ask questions like, “Could you feel your lips were apart at the beginning of the words: Hector, hound, howls, and hen? “Did you break the /h/ sound off of each word?” (tickler on the last page)
5. Pass out primary paper and pencils to students. Say, “Let’s practice writing the lower-case letter h. First, you will start at the rooftop. You will then make a line all the way down to the ground. Then go to the sidewalk and make a curve down to the ground again.” Before I begin, I will model for the students how to write the lowercase letter h several times.
6. Call on students to answer what words have the /h/ in them: Do you hear /h/ in hat or cab? hot or pat? hop or low? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth movement /h/ in some words. Words: The, hound, howls, at, the, hairy, and hog.
7. Read the book, Hungry Hen by Richard Waring. Book-talk: There once was a very hungry little hen. When she ate, she grew and grew. Up on a hill lived a fox. He is hungry. He is looking for food. He plans to break into the enormous hen’s house. What do you think will happen? We will have to read to find out what happens next. While you read, I want you to pant when you hear the phoneme /h/.
8. To assess the students on h = /h/, I will pass out the worksheet (Beginning Sounds Color page for h) to determine if each student can use the strategy taught in this lesson. The students will color each picture that starts with an /h/ in the letter h on the worksheet. I will walk around and make sure each student is coloring the correct picture on the worksheet. At the very end, I will let the students draw one of the pictures from the phonetic cue words list after reading them correctly or after modeling using explicit methods to teach letter recognition and phoneme awareness
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References:
http://erinmyler.wixsite.com/mysite/emergent-literacy-design
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/learning/letter-h/
Assessment worksheet: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/BSCPlower.pdf
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Waring, R. (2001) Hungry Hen. Oxford: Harper collins publishers.
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Hector runs with h
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Hector the hound howls at the hen
The hen runs away and hides
Hector hunts down the hen
The hen hides under the house
Hector never finds the hen
The hen is safe from the hound
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