Dunk, Dunk, Dribble, Dribble

Alizabeth Irwin

 Emergent Literacy Design

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /d/, the phoneme represented by D. Students will learn to recognize /d/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (a basketball dribbling) and the letter symbol D, practice finding /d/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /d/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters. This lesson is geared towards an appropriate literacy goal for students at this stage of literacy development.

Materials: Primary paper and a pencil. Chart that says "Dan dribbles down then dunks"; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); words cards with DO, DOG, DUCK, DUNK, DARK, DOWN



1. Say:  Our written language is a secret code. The trick is learning what the letters stand for- the mouth moves we make as say words.  Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move for /d/.  We spell /d/ with the Letter D.  D looks like a half moon, and the /d/ sounds like we are dribbling a basketball.


2. Let's pretend to dribble our basketball.  When I say go, I want you to dribble three times for /d/, /d/, /d/.  (Pantomime a dribbling motion while saying /d/)/ Notice how the tip of your tongue starts at the top of your gums behind your front teeth and pops down? When we say /d/, we are pushing air through our mouths while we move our tongue. Try it! Yes, very good!


3.  Let me show you how to find /d/ in the word dribble.  I'm going to stretch out the word in slow motion and listen for my dribble sound.  Dddd-rr-ii-bb-ll-e. Again.  DDDdddd-rrr-ii-bb-l-e.  Did you see how my tongue hits the back of my teeth and came down? I can almost feel that dribble sound when my tongue hits the tops of my gums.


4. Let's try a tongue tickler. "Dan dribbles down then dunks."  Can we stretch out that drum beat?  Every time we hear it is at the beginning of the words.  Like this, "Dddan ddddribbles, etc." Now, let's see if we can pull that dribble sound off of our words.  "Dddd-an ddd-ribbles dddd-own then ddd-unks, etc."


5.  (Bring out primary paper and pencil) We use the letter D to spell /d/.  Captial D looks like a half moon.  We can also practice lowercase d.  First, make a lowercase c.  Then, right next to the c, begin at the rooftop, and connect a straight line on the side for our c until we reach the sidewalk. Once I see that you have it, and I give you a sticker for your hard work, I want you to make nine more just like it! 


6.  I want you to listen to the words and sounds I am going to say.  You can tell me if you hear /d/ in these words.  Do you hear /d/ in dream or awake? Down or upCat or dog?

 Now, dribble your basketball if you hear /d/ in any of the words I say. "Time, dear, book, monkey, dessert, double, rose"


7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a boy having a silly dream whose name starts with a D. Can you guess?" Read the D page drawing out /d/. Ask children if they can think of other words that start with /d/. Make up a silly dream like David Donald Doo's and include pictures. I will display these on the letter board.


8. Show DOG and model how to decide if it is DOG or LOG. The D tells me to dribble my basketball, so this word is ddd-og, dog. You try some: DUNK: dunk or skunk? DOWN: down or frown? DUCK: luck or duck?


9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet.  Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with F. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.






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