Rationale: This lesson will help children identify the consonant /r/, the phoneme represented by R. Students will learn to recognize /r/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (dog growling sound) and the letter symbol R, practice finding /r/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /r/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Picture of a dog growling (https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+of+dog+growling&sxsrf=ALeKk00v_8tcktJjAHZuybuBoJErKM8B-A:1593467367717&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixmafDgKjqAhVtQt8KHQe2AdgQ_AUoAXoECAsQAw&biw=1021&bih=988); primary paper and pencil; chart with "Rex ran after the rabbit in the rain"; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with ROCK, RACE, MAKE, RED, MOCK, and CASE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /f/ (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 /r/. We spell /r/ with letter R. R looks like a racetrack, and /r/ sounds like a growl.
2. Let's pretend to growl like a dog, /r/, /r/, /r/. [Pantomime growling like a dog] Notice where your tongue is and the shape of it? When we say /r/, our tongue is rolled up and down, teeth clenched together and lips pucker.
3. Let me show you how to find /r/ in the word frog. I'm going to stretch frog out in super slow motion and listen for my growl. Ff-rrr-o-g. Slower: Fff-rrr-o-o-o-gg. There it was! I felt my tongue roll to the roof of my mouth, teeth clenched, and lips pucker. Growl /r/ is in frog.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. “Rex ran after the rabbit in the rain.”." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /r/ at the beginning of the words and growl like a dog. "Rrrex rrran after the rrrabit in the rrrain.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/R/ ex /r/ an after the /r/ abbit in the /r/ ain.
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter R to spell /r/. Capital R looks like a racetrack. Let's write the lowercase letter r. Start at the fence and draw a line all the way down to the sidewalk. Then, go back to the sidewalk and draw a curve, like a wave crashing over, on the right side where the line meets the fence. I want to see everybody's r. After I put a star 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 /r/ in far or bed? walk or run? rain or snow? right or left? dark or light? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /r/ in some words. Growl if you hear /r/: The, red, rose, fell, down, from, the, right, side.
7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a little girl named Rosy who has a pet rhinoceros." Read page 42 and 43, stretching out /r/. Ask children if they can think of other pet names starting with /r/. Ask them to write their pet names and color a drawing of their newly named pets. Then have each student write a different word starting with R to put inside the red rhinoceros’s room. Display their artwork in the classroom.
8. Show RAT and model how to decide if it is rat or sat: The R tells me to growl like a dog, /r/, so this word is rrr-at, rat. You try some: RUB: rub or tub? TAKE: rake or take? BEST: best or rest? RUSH: rush or hush? POOF: poof or roof?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with R. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
References:
Assessment worksheet: https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/r-begins2.htm
Dr. Bruce Murray: The Reading Genie: ​http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/
Lolly Zimmerman, Growling Dog with R
https://llz0002.wixsite.com/website/emergent-literacy-design-el
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