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Emergent Literacy Design:

Leo the Lion Licks with L

By:Mackenzie Bonk

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

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Leo the Lion licks the lollipop"; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with LOG, LIT, LEFT, LIPS, LORD, and LAKE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /l/ (URL below).d

Procedures:e 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 /l/. We spell /l/ with letter L. Lowercase l looks like a lollipop stick and /l/ sounds like the noise you make when licking the lollipop.

2. Let's pretend to lick the lollipop , /l/, /l/, /l/. [Pantomime licking a lollipop] Notice where your top teeth are? (Touching the top of your tongue). When we say /l/, we stick our tongue between our teeth and pull it back into our mouth.

3. Let me show you how to find /l/ in the word gal. I'm going to stretch gal out in super slow motion and listen for my licking. Gg-aa-ll. Slower: Gg-a-a-a-llll There it was! I felt my tongue between my teeth. Licking /l/ is in gal.g

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Leo the lion has a bad sweet tooth. Leo loves to eat lemon lollipops. Leo licks all the lollipops. Here’s our tickler: "Leo the lion licks lemon lollipops." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /l/ at the beginning of the words. "Lllleo the lllion lllicks lllemon lllollipos." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/l/eo the /l/ion /l/icks /l/emon /l/ollipos.

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter L to spell /l/. lowercase L looks like a lollipop stick. Let's write the uppercase L. Start at the rooftop and draw straight down to the sidewalk and then a short line along the sidewalk. I want to see everybody's l. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /l/ in lake or sea? lizard or bunny? sell or cents? Lift or drop? leap or soar? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /l/ in some words. Lick the lollipop if you hear /l/: Leap, funny, tell, bug, flew, legs, to, let, red, flowers.

7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a lazy lion with a sweet snack!" Read page 19, drawing out /l/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /l/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like Leapin-liffer-lemur, or Little-lazzing-lambo. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.

8. Show LOG and model how to decide if it is log or fog: The L tells me to lick my lollipop, /l/, so this word is lll-og, log. You try some: LEG: leg or peg? DAMP: lamp or damp? LIME: lime or time? LACK: lack or pack? ROCK: rock or lock?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with L. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

Reference: The Letter L With Loud Lions Ellie Tschetter https://ellietschetter.wixsite.com/ellieslessons/emergent-literacy

Assessment worksheet: https://www.kidzone.ws/images-changed/kindergarten/l-as-begins1.gif

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