Beating the drum with B

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Emergent Literacy Design

by: Mallory Haynes

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Students will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (beating the drum) and the letter symbol B, practice finding /b/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with the /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from the beginning letter.

Materials: (1) Primary paper and (2) pencil; (3) chart with “Bill and Betty Baked Brown Bread for Barbara’s Baby”, (4) drawing paper and (5) crayons; (6) Bud the Sub (Cushman, 1990) (7) note/word cards with BOX, BIG, BOOK, SAD, BED, and BEAR. (7) Assessment worksheet identifying letter B.

Procedures: 1. Say: “Our written language is a secret code. The strange part is learning what each letter stands for and how we move our mouths to make the sound on the letter. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth moves for /b/. We spell /b/ with the letter B.”

2. An example of hearing the /b/ sound is when a drummer beats his/her drums. Let’s pretend to be drummers and beat our invisible drums, /b/, /b/, /b/. Notice our lips touch as we say the sound /b/.

3. Let me show you how to find /b/ in the word lab, like my favorite dog a Labrador Retriever. I am going to stretch lab out in super slow motion (emphasizing the ending /b/) and listen for the beating drum (I will beat my drums at the end to show students that /b/ is represented in lab. Lll-a-a-abbb. Slower Lll-a-a-a-bbb. Say: “There’s the beating drums at the end! I noticed my lips touching as I finished the word.”

4. Now let’s try a tongue tickler.  “Bill and Betty Baked Brown Bread for Barbara’s Baby.” Now let’s say it all together as a class three times. Now let’s get our drums out and beat them when we hear the /b/. Say tongue tickler again emphasizing /b/ while beating the drums. This time we are going to say the tongue tickler and break the /b/ off at the beginning of the word: “/b/ ill and /b/ etty /b/ aked /b/ rown /b/ read for /b/ arbara.”

5. Now it is time to get out your paper and pencil. We are going to use the letter B to spell /b/. Capital B looks like a pair of wings on a bumble bee. I will draw a bumble bee and cover up the left half of the bee to show that the right wing looks like a capital B. Look at the bubble bee and his wings. Say: “Can everyone see the capital B represented by the right wing of the bumble bee? Great! Now it is your turn to draw the capital B on your paper.” (More practice with uppercase will be completed on assessment worksheet). After students have drawn the capital B we will write the lowercase b. Say: “Now let’s write the lowercase b. Start with your pencil at the rooftop and make a straight line all the way to the sidewalk, next start at the fence and draw a backwards “c” connecting the ends to the straight line you have just drawn. Let me see your b. Once I have checked and put a star by your b I want you to write 7 more just like it!”

6. After all the students have written their b’s I will then call on a few students to see what they know: Do you hear /b/ in back or lap? Talk or beg? Tiger or bear? Bee or leg? Block or chalk? Let’s see if you can see the mouth move /b/ in some words. Beat the drums when you hear /b/ “Banana, Bread, is, Burning, in, the, Bakery, down, the, Block.”

7. Now let’s look at the book called Bud the Sub (Cushman, 1990). We are going to read about a submarine named Bud. Gus controls where Bud goes. OH NO! Bud runs into a tug! Will Gus and Bud be able to help the tug? Let’s read to find out! After reading the book I will ask my students if they can think of any other words that they can beat the drums too and have make the /b/ sound. I will ask them to make up another fun name for Bud the sub that will also start with /b/. Say: “The name can be anything that you want it just has to start with /b/. An example would be Bobby the Sub. Do you hear the /b/ in Bobby? Good work! Now it is your turn to be creative and come up with your very own name for the sub!” I will then have my students draw a fun picture beside their new name for Bud. I will display the names and drawings inside the classroom.

8. I will show them the word BIG and model how I know this word is big not dig. I am able to beat the drum with BIG and not dig because of my lips are together while I say BIG. Now I will ask them to try a few: BOX: fox or box? BOOK: book or look? SAD: bad or sad? BED: bed or led? BEAR: fear or bear?

9. Assessment: I will hand out a worksheet. On the worksheet I will have my students write lower case b and uppercase B. My students will also trace a word that starts with the letter b and color the bumble bee on the worksheet. While my students work on the worksheet I will call them individually to my desk to read the phonetic cue words from step 8.

 

References: Murray, Bruce; Emergent Literacy Design: Brush Your Teeth With F http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html

Assessment worksheet: http://www.kindergartenworksheets.net/handwriting-practice-worksheets/letter-b-writing-practice-worksheet-printable.html

Pickett, Shelby; Listen for the letter T from a clock: Tick Tock, Tick Tock: http://slp0024.wixsite.com/shelbylynnepickett/emergent-literacy-design-1

Capital B explanation with Bumble Bee: https://actionfactor.com/pages/lesson-plans/v1.01-alphabet.html