By Anna Ickes
This lesson will help children identify /w/, the phoneme represented by W. Students will learn to recognize /w/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (spinning washing machine) and the letter symbol W, practice finding /w/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /w/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with " Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash"; drawing paper and crayons; Eating the alphabet by Lois Ehlert; word cards with WENT, HOP, WET, WEST, CAT, What, and WOKE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /w/.
Procedures: 1. Say: 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're going to work on spotting the mouth move /w/. We spell /w/ with letter w. W looks like clothes hanging on a clothesline, and /w/ sounds like a washing machine.
2. Let's pretend to wash clothes in the washing machine, /w/, /w/, /w/. [Move hands in a circular motion like a spinning washing machine] Notice how your lips touch then open? (makes wuh sound). When we say /w/, we open our mouths and make the sound from the top of our throat.
3. Let me show you how to find /w/ in the word went. I'm going to stretch went out in super slow motion and listen for the washing machine. Wwww-e-e-ent. Slower: www-e-e-e-nnn-t There it was! I felt my lips move apart. Washing machine /f\w/ is in went.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Wayne loves to travel and see all different types of animals. He even went across the Atlantic ocean to see a very special animal that lives in the ocean. Here’s our tickler: "Wayne went to Wales to watch walruses.." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /w/ at the beginning of the words. "Wwwwayne wwwent to Wwwwales to wwwatch wwwwalruses.." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: /w/-ayne /w/-ent to /w/-ales to /w/-atch /w/-alruses.
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter W to spell /w/. Capital W looks like clothes on a clothesline. Let's write the lowercase letter w. Start just below the fence. Start with a line down to the sidewalk then back up to the fence. One more time and you’ve made the second part of a lowercase w. Hold up your Ws proudly! Great job, keeping the lines straight. Try it 10 more times.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /w/ in work or fun? wet or cat? that or what? saw or same? nest or new? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /w/ in some words. Brush your teeth if you hear /w/: The, went, toys, west, flew, car, to, make, trucks, flowers.
7. Say: "This book is filled with yummy fruits and veggies to help us learn our letters." Find W in the book. Can the student think of any other foods that have /w/? If you could make your veggies taste like some other food, what would it be? Let’s name your new fruit with a word that starts with W. Try writing a story with your W name.
8. Show WET and model how to decide if it is wet or bet: The W tells me to wash my clothes in the spinning washing machine, /w/, so this word is www-et, wet. You try some: WENT: bent or went? WHAT: what or than? WOKE: poke or woke? HOP: hop or how? CAT: cat or wait?
9. Students color in the shapes with the letter W for the assessment. Read the words from step 8.
Assessment: Worksheets courtesy of Easy Peasy Learners
Reference:
Murray, Bruce; Teaching Letter Recognition