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Emergent Literacy

Clicking your Camera with C

By: Morgan Steele

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Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /k/, the phoneme represented by C. Students will learn to recognize /k/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (clicking their camera) and the letter symbol C, practice finding /k/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /k/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

 

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Carol and Claire can cook carrots, corn, cabbage and candy"; drawing paper and crayons; Karma Wilsons The Cow Loves Cookies (McElderry Books,2011) ; word cards with CARS, CENT, COLD, CAP, COAT, and CUT; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /c/ (URL below).

 

Procedures:

 1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. Learning what letters stand for and say can be a little tricky. By moving our mouths as we say each word, we can find out what each letter stands for. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /k/. We spell /k/ with letter C. C looks like a cats curled tail, and /k/ sounds like clicking a camera.

 

2. Say: “Let's pretend to click our camera, /k/, /k/, /k/. [pretend to clicks camera] Notice we don’t use our teeth? (mouth open). When we say /k/, we press the back of our tongue against the back of your mouth and releasing a puff of air.”

 

3. Say: “Let me show you how to find /k/ in the word can. I'm going to stretch can out in super slow motion and listen for my clicking camera. Ccc-an. Slower: Cccc-a-nnn There it was! I felt my tongue press against my throat and blow air. Clicking camera /k/ is in can.”

4. Say: “Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. "Carol and Claire can cook carrots, corn, cabbage, and candy". Let’s say it all together again. Now say again but this time, stretch the /k/ at the beginning of the words. "Cccarol and Ccclaire ccccan cccook ccccarrots, cccorn, cccabbage, and cccandy." This time break it off the word: "/k/arol and /k/laire /k/an /k/ook /k/arrots, /k/orn, /k/abbage, and /k/andy.”

 

5. [Ask students to take out primary paper and pencil]. “We use letter C to spell /k/. Capital C looks like a curled cat’s tail. Let's write the lowercase letter c. Start just below the fence. Start to make a little o in the air, and stop just before you complete your o, right above the sidewalk. I want to see everybody's c. After I put a check on it, I want you to make 6 more just like it”.

 

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they know the correct answer: “Do you hear /k/ in dog or cat? cake or pie? corn or bean? color or draw? cold or hot? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /k/ in some words. Click your camera if you hear /k/: Caroline can cook cookies for the class.”

 

7. Say: "Now we are going to read, “The Cow Loves Cookies” by Karma Wilson. Farmer feeds all his animals their normal farm animal food, but the cow loves cookies. There are a lot of words that start with /k/ in this story. When you hear them, I want you to draw a /k/ in the air with your finger.” Once we have finished the book, the children will draw anything that starts with the letter /k/ from the story. The children will then write a short sentence about what they drew. They will then share what they know about the letter /k/ with the class.

 

8. Show CARS and model how to decide if it is cars or bars: “The C tells me to click my camera, /k/, so this word is ccc-ars, cars. You try some: CENT: cent or rent? HOLD: cold or hold? CAP: map or cap? BOAT: boat or coat? CUT: cut or rut?”

 

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will trace the letter /k/, then color in the picture that start with /k/. Students will be asked to come up one by one to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

 

Reference:

Laura Moore, Clapping with Letter C https://sites.google.com/site/lauramooreresearchbasedreading/emergent-literacy

Assessment: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-hardc_WFFRW.pdf?up=1466611200

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