Emergent Literacy Design
Learning "L" with your Hand
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /l/, the phoneme presented by L. Students will learn to recognize /l/ in spoken words through learning a hand movement (making an “L” shape with their thumb and pointer finger) and the letter symbol L, practice finding /l/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /l/ in phonetic cue reading through distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and wooden pencil; chart that reads “Lisa lost a large lemon late last night”; Dr. Suess’s ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with Log, Like, Street, Find, Stop, and Lake; assessment worksheet in which students identify pictures with /l/. (URL Below)
https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/alphabet-practice-l/
Procedure:
1. Say: Our written language is like a secret code. The hard part is learning what letters stand for. Our mouths move as we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /l/. We spell /l/ with the letter L. When I hold my right hand up with just my thumb and index finger out, it looks like the letter L.
2. Let’s practice holding up our “L” and sounding /l/, /l/, /l/. [Emphasis on the “L symbol” by pushing the hand forwards and back]. Now, notice where your tongue is? When we say /l/, we press our tongue to the roof of our mouth and roll it forwards.
3. Now, let me show you how to find /l/ in the word salt. I'm going to stretch the word, salt, out in slow motion for you to listen for the L signal. Sss-aa-lt. Slower: Ssss-aaa-llll-t. There it was! Did you hear it? I felt my tongue touch the roof of my mouth.
4. Let’s try a tongue tickler! Lisa lost a large lemon late last night. Lisa had been growing lemons on her lemon tree for quite some time. Last night, she was picking them off of the tree when she accidentally dropped the largest lemon and watched it roll away! Here’s our tickler. “Lisa lost a large lemon late last night.” Everybody, let’s say it three times together.
Now, let’s say it one more time, but let’s really stretch out the /l/ at the beginning of the words. “Lllisa lllost a lllarge lllemon lllate lllast night.” Try that one more time, but now let’s berak it off of the rest of the word: “/l/ isa /l/ ost a /l/ arge /l/ emon /l/ ate /l/ast night.
5. [Students should take out their sheet of primary paper and a pencil]. We use the letter L to spell /l/. A capital L looks just like our right hand when our two fingers make the L shape. But now let’s write a lowercase L. Start at the top of the rooftop and bring your pencil all the way down to the bottom. Simple right? I want to see everybody’s l. After I put a little star next to your l, I want you to write it ten more times just like that.
6. Call on students to answer and tell you how they knew: Do you hear /l/ in like, love, or see? Drop or lift? Touch or feel? Say: Let’s see if you can see the mouth move /l/ in some words. Hold up your L if you hear /l/: Lily, loved, the, lollipop, she, had, at, the, lake.
7. Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr Suess tells us all about a funny creature that has four feathers growing right out of its head!
Look at page 16 and read, drawing out /l/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /l/. Ask them to make up a creature and give it a silly name like the Lollyloo or Loolafur. Then have each student write their new silly name with their own invented spelling on a sheet of paper. Have them draw a silly picture of it too!
8. Show LOG and model how to decide if it is log or dog: The /l/ tells me to hold up my hand, /l/, so this word is lll-og, log. You try some: LAME: lame or game? LAKE: lake or rake? LICK: lick or sick? LATE: late or date? LIE: lie or tie?
9. To assess, distribute the worksheet. Students will color pictures beginning with L. Call on students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
References
Assessment worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/alphabet-practice-l/
https://carolinepond00.wixsite.com/designs/emergent-literacy
