H, H, All Out of Breath

Emergent Literacy

Rachel Smith

Rationale: This lesson will help the students identify /h/, the phoneme represented by the letter H. Students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (running arms) and the letter symbol H, practice finding /h/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /h/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Harry had a horrible headache and hated to hear Henry howl."; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who (Random House, 1954); word cards with HOG, HIT, NEAT, FIND, HELP, and HATE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/ (URL below).


1. Say: Letters that we see are a code like spies use. The hard part is learning what each letter stands for and the way your mouth moves as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /h/. We spell /h/ with letter H. H looks like finish line for a race, and /h/ sounds like a runner all out of breath and pants.

2. Let's pretend to run, /h/, /h/, /h/. [Pump arms like running] What is your mouth doing while we pant? (Open, circular). When we say /h/, we blow air out of an open mouth.

3. Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word hike. I'm going to say it very slowly so I can hear when I am out of breath. Hhhh-IIII-kkk. Slower: Hhh-I-I-I-kkkk. I heard it! I felt my mouth make an open circle. I can feel the panting /h/ in hike.

4. Now let’s say our tongue twister [on chart]. "Harry had a horrible headache and hated to hear Henry  howl." Everybody say it three times together. Now let’s say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of the words and pump your running arms. " Hhhharry hhhhad a hhhhhorrible hhhhhheadache and hhhhhhated to hhhhhear Hhhhhenry  hhhhhowl." Try it again, and this timepause between the /h/ and the word: " /H/ arry /h/ ad a /h/ orrible /h/ eadache and /h/ ated to /h/ ear /H/ enry  /h/ owl.

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter H to spell /h/. Capital H looks like the finish line of a race. Let's write the lowercase letter h. Start at the rooftop and draw a straight line to the sidewalk. Then go to the fence and make a little bump like n from the line down to the sidewalk.

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /h/ in help or ignore? hat or belt? hop or jump? hot or cold? Say: Who can spot the open mouth /h/ in some words. Pump your arms if you hear /h/: The, hurt, fluffy, hang, high, how, what, red, tulip.

7. Say: "Now we are going to read a book called Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss. Horton is a really big animal with really big ears who can hear something others can’t. Who thinks they know what Horton is?" Read pages 2-3, drawing out /h/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /h/. Ask them to make up things the Whos would do that have /h/in them like hop or shop. Then have each student write their activity in invented spelling and draw a picture of the Whos doing the activity. Display their work in the classroom.

8. Show HOG card and model how to decide if it is Hog or bog: The H tells me to run to the finish line, /h/, so this word is hhhh-og, hog. You try some: HIT: hit or pit? NEAT: heat or neat? FIND: find or hind? HELP: Help or kelp? HATE: fate or hate?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will determine if the picture starts with H, C, or P. Students will complete partial spellings with the correct first phoneme. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.




Duvall, Jenny; Hip Hop, http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/duvallel.html


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