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The Big Bad Bulldog

Emergent Literacy
Shelby Ptak

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B.  Students will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words by learning the sound analogy of a the small barking sound that dogs sometimes make. They will work with the letter symbol B and practice finding /b/ in words. This lesson will teach them to apply phoneme awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

 

Materials:

  • Tongue Twister Chart for Big Bad Bulldog

  • Pencils

  • Primary Paper

  • Word Cards with the words: BIG, BAD, DARK, BULL, PARK, BAKE

  • Decodable Book: “Big Bad Bat"

  • Drawing Paper

  • Crayons

  • Assessment Worksheet for identifying pictures with the letter

 

Procedure:

  1. Say: When we are looking at a book and trying to read it, it may be kind of hard for us to figure out at first. That’s because we need to learn what all of those letters sound like and how they can form a word. We are going to be working to figure out how our mouth moves when we say words so that we can figure out what our letters stand for. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /b/. We spell /b/ with letter B. B looks like two little puppy dog ears, and it makes a sound like a small barking, /b/.

  2. Say: Let's pretend that we are doing a small bark, /b/, /b/, /b/. [Raise hands to the side of the head to pretend to be a dog and then make the /b/ sound like barking] Notice what we are doing with our lips? (Touching where lips meet). When we say /b/, we are bringing our lips together and then making our sound as they come apart.

  3. Say: Let me show you how to find /b/ in the word robe, as in bathrobe. I'm going to stretch robe out in super slow motion and listen for my bulldog barking. Rrr-o-o-obe. Slower: Rrr-o-o-o-bbb-e There it was! I felt my lips come together and push out the sound. Bulldog /b/ is in robe.

  4. Say: Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. At home I have a big, bad bulldog. His name is Buster. Buster barks at boys, bicycles, and buses. Buster thinks that he is a big, bad bulldog. Here’s our tickler: "Buster barks at boys, bicycles, and buses." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /b/ at the beginning of the words. "He bbbarks at bbboys, bbbicylces, and bbbuses." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "He /b/ arks at /b/ oys, /b/ icycles, and /b/ uses.

  5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. Say: We use letter B to spell /b/. Our capital B has two dog ears, because of the bulldog barking. Let's write the lowercase letter b. We are going to start by making a straight line starting way up at the rooftop and all the way down to the sidewalk. Once we have that line, we are going make a circle. We will do this by going from our sidewalk up to our fence, and then coming back down to the sidewalk. It should all connect to the first line we drew. I want to see everybody's b. After I put a check mark on it, I want you to practice it four more times, and then we will practice some more later.

  6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /b/ in breakfast or lunch? big or small? sneaker or backpack? boring or fun? adult or baby? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /b/ in some words. Put up your dog ears if you hear /b/: The, big, bug, flew, by, the, garden, and, buzzed.

  7. Say: "Let's look at a fun book. In this story Bob and Mem are picking out a new toy to get. They find a nice toy, but they don't notice that there is a bat next to them! What is this bat going to do? Let's read to find out!" Read a few pages of the book, drawing out /b/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /b/. Ask them to pick a word that starts with B and draw a picture of it. Then have each student write what their picture is with invented spelling. Display their work.

  8. Show BIG and model how to decide if it is big or dig: The B shows our bulldog barking, /b/, so this word is bbb-ig, big. You try some: BAD: mad or bad? DARK: bark or dark? BULL: bull or pull? PARK: bark or park? BAKE: bake or make?

  9. For the assessment at the end, students will be handed the worksheet for identifying pictures with the letter B. They will circle the pictures that start with the letter B. They will also practice writing the letter B. While students are working on this, they will individually be called up to read the word cards.

 

Sources:

  1. Big Bad Bat by Mona Al-Dalaan; https://sites.google.com/site/guidedreadingad/decodable

  2. Turtle Diary, Identify Words That Start With B, https://www.turtlediary.com/worksheet/identify-words-that-start-with-b.html

   3. For a similar lesson by Kellie Vosteen "Buzzing Bee Z" visit: https://kellievosteen.wixsite.com/literacylessons/emergent-literacy

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