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EL Design

Bouncing The Ball With B!

Emergent Literacy Design

By: Laura Anderson

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 (bouncing basketball) and the letter symbol B, practice finding /b/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

 

Materials: Enlarged copy of basketball (bouncing basketball) image; primary paper; pencils; chart with “Betty bakes banana bread before bed”; drawing paper; crayons; Alphabet City (Johnson, 1995); word cards with the words: BAG, BED, TOY, BEACH, and FALL; Assessment worksheet- Letter Bb (link below).

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Procedures:

  1. Teachers says: “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 are going to pay close attention to how our mouths move when we say /b/.  We spell /b/ with the letter B, and /b/ sounds like bouncing a ball.”

  2. Place the image of the bouncing basketball on the board. Teacher says: “Look at this image of a bouncing basketball.  The ball is bouncing making the sound sound /b/, /b/, /b/, /b/.  Let’s use our hands to bounce the ball.  Everyone say /b/, /b/, /b/ while moving your hand up and down like you are bouncing a ball.  Notice where your tongue is positioned in your mouth when we say /b/? (pressed together). When we say /b/ we press our lips together, and then push them out.” 

  3. Teacher says: “Now that we know how our mouths move when we say /b/, let me show you how to find /b/ in words.  For example, let’s use the word bite.  I’m going to stretch bite out very slow, be sure to listen for the bouncing ball.  Bb-ii-t-e. Now I’m going to say it even slower: Bbbb-iii-tt-e.  There it was! I could feel my lips push out at the end of the word.”

  4. Teacher says: “Now let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart].  “Betty bakes banana bread before bed for Beth's birthday” (tickler tale possibility: Betty bakes banana bread before bed for Beth's birthday because Beth beams over banana bread.)    Everyone say it three times together.  Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /b/ at the beginning of the words.  “Bbbetty bbbakes bbbanana bbbread bbbefore bbbed.”  Try it again, and now this time break off the word: “/b/ etty /b/ akes /b/ anana /b/read /b/ efore  /b/ ed.”

  5. Teacher says: “Now everyone take out your primary paper and pencil.  We use the letter B  to spell /b/.  For a capital B draw a line from the rooftop to the sidewalk.  Then start at the rooftop and make half a circle to the fence.  Start again at the fence and make a second half circle to the sidewalk.  Let’s write a lowercase b now.  Start at the rooftop and draw a line to the sidewalk.  Now make a half circle like we did before, but only make one from the fence to the sidewalk.  After you finish I want to look at your b’s.  Once I check it and give you a sticker, I want you to make ten more just like it.”

  6. Call on students to answer and have them explain how they knew. Teacher says: “Do you hear /b/ in bite or fun? Sick or brick? Rag or table?  Bat or slip? Tab or walk?  Now let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /b/ in some words. Bake your basketball if you hear /b/: When, Billy, got, a, bad, cold, his, Mom, rubbed, his, head.”

  7. Teacher says: “Let’s look at the book Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson. The author took pictures of what you see in a city.  These real life things in a city look like letters in the alphabet. Some are easy to spot, but others take a little use of imagination to see.  Show the student the page with the letter B.  Give students a minute to find it themselves and use their imagination.  Teacher says: “Did you find the B?  There is the B.  It is made from the staircases along the side on the building.   Now I want each of you to make up a list of things your would see in a city that start with /b/ and draw them.  Then name the boulevard for your buildings stair case. For example I did Balacha Boulevard.”  Have students use invented spelling to create a boulevard.

  8. Show BAG and model how to decide if it is bag or nag:  Teacher says: “The B  tells me to bounce the ball, /b/, so this word is bbb-ag, bag.  Now you try some: BED: bed or fed? TOY: boy or toy? BEACH: teach or beach? FALL: ball or fall?”

  9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet and assess if students can affectively pick the /b/ sound out of words, hand out the b worksheet and crayons Teacher says: I just gave you all a worksheet with pictures on it. If the picture is of a thing that has the letter b in it color it and finish writing the word on the dotted line below the picture.

 

 

References:

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Bruce Murray: Brush Your Teeth with F: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html

Hannah Shelton: Bouncing the “B” Ball: http://hbs0006.wixsite.com/readingdesigns/emergent-literacy-

Bouncing Basketball Image: https://openclipart.org/detail/222581/basketballcssspritesheet

Assessment worksheet:http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/b-begins2.htm

Book: Johnson, Stephen T. Alphabet City. New York, NY: Viking, 1995. Print.

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