Singing La-La-La to Learn L
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Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /l/, the phoneme represented by L. Student will learn to recognize /l/ in spoken words by using a sound analogy (singing la-la-la) and the letters symbol, practice finding /l/ in words and apply phoneme awareness with /l/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
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Materials: primary paper, pencil, print out of tongue tickler: “Lizzy the Lizard left her lucky leaves at the left lake”, word cards with LAB, LAKE, LOG, LAND, Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /l/ (link attached).
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Procedures:
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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. L looks like a music note, and /l/ sounds like singing la-la-la.
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Say: Let's pretend we are singers singing for a crowd “la-la-la”. Notice where your tongue is when you sing /l/ (lifting tongue to the roof of the mouth). When we say /l/, we lift our tongue to the root of our mouth.
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Say: Let me show you how to find /l/ in the word. I'm going to stretch help out in super slow motion and wait for your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth. Hhh-e-e-elp. Slower: Hhh-e-e-e-llll-p There it was! I felt my tongue touch the top of my mouth. /l/, /l/, /l/ is in help.
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Say: Let’s try a tongue tickler! Lizzy the Lizard has some really special leaves she has been collecting from the lake. Lizzy all of the sudden realized these leaves gave her good luck! Sadly, she just found out she left all those lucky leaves at the lake on the left. Lizzy the Lizard left her lucky leaves at the left lake. Here’s our tickler “Lizzy the Lizard left her lucky leaves at the left lake”. Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time stretch the /l/ at the beginning of the words. “Llllizzy the Llllizard lllleft her lllucky lllleaves at the lllleft lllake”. Try it again and this time break it off the word: /l/ izzy the /l/ izard /l/ eft her /l/ ucky /l/eaves at the /l/eft /l/ake.
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(Have students take out primary paper and pencil) Say: We use the letter L to spell /l/. Capital L looks like your left hand when you put your fingers together like this (model how to make L with your hand). Let’s write capital L. Start from the top, draw your big finger and then go out to draw your thumb. Good job drawing what your hands look like! Now let’s write lowercase l. Lowercase l look just like when you hold up only one finger. (model lowercase l). Now, let’s draw lowercase l starting at the top of your finger and going straight down. Good job, those lines look great! I want to see everyone’s capital and lowercase L and once I give you an L sticker I want you to write nine more capital L’s.
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Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /l/ in dog or log? Lost or mop? Lip or mat? Look or down? Help or top? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /l/ in some words. Hold up an L with your hand if you hear /l/: The, lost, dog, left, the, hole, to, linger, around, the, long, lane.
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Say: Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a creature that no one has
ever seen once he was lifted away. Only the once-ler knows, but he won’t say. Only if you give him a few special things. One day a boy gave the once-ler those special things and found out the story of the Lorax. We have to read to find out who the Lorax is and why he got lifted away. The Lorax has the letter L in it when we say /l/ orax. Each time you hear /l/ as we read hold up your big letter L’s. After reading, students will be able to come up with their own character to put in the book that begins with the letter L.
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Show card with LAB and model how to decide if it is lab or dab. The L tells me to sing la and touch my tongue to the top of my mouth /l/. So, this word is llll-ab, lab. You try some: LAKE: lake or cake? LOG: log or dog? LAND: land or band?
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For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with L. Call the students to read the phonetic cue words from step 8.
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Reference:
Nicole Holmes, Lady the Lion Learns L
https://vnholmes1322.wixsite.com/mysite/emergent-literacy-design
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Assessment Worksheet:
https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter- l_WFMFZ.pdf?up=1466611200
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