Rationale:

It is crucial that students become readers with confidence and are able to spell and read all words.  This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Students will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (bouncing an imaginary ball) and the letter symbol B, practicing finding /b/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

 

Materials:

• primary paper and pencil

• chart with “Bob’s bear bounced basketballs before bedtime”

• a picture of a bear/basketballs

• drawing paper and crayons

• word cards with: bake, bang, mad, brake, boot, hate

• Bears of Blue River by Charles Major

 

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 or letters. Today, we are going to work on how the mouth moves when making /b/. We spell /b/ with letter B. B looks similar to two balls bouncing on top of each other.

 

2. Now, lets pretend that we have a large basketball in our hands and we want to bounce them up and down. The /b/ sound is made when the ball hits the ground. Every time we hear the /b/ sound lets move our hand up and down like we are bouncing a ball. Notice that when we say /b/ our top and bottom lip touch each other and then bounce right off, similar to a ball when it hits the ground and bounces back up.

 

3. Let me show you how to find /b/ in the word bite. I am going to stretch out bite in super slow motion and listen for my bouncing basketball. Bb-I-I-te. Slower: Bbb-I-I-I-t-te. There it is! I could feel my lips touching each other and bouncing back off. I can hear the ball bouncing in bite.

 

4. Now that we can hear /b/, let’s try a tongue twister (on the chart). “Bob’s big bear bounced basketballs before bedtime.” Everyone say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /b/ at the beginning of the words. “Bbbobbb’s bbbear bbbounced bbbasketbbballs bbbefore bbbedtime.” Try it again, but this time break the /b/ off the word: “/b/o /b/ ’s /b/ ear /b/ ounced /b/ asket /b/ alls /b/ efore /b/ edtime.”

 

5. (Students should now take out their primary paper and a pencil). We use the letter B to create the sound /b/. Capital B looks like a line with two humps on the side. We go straight down to the sidewalk; around for his chest, and around for his big tummy. Now let’s write the lowercase letter b. Start at the rooftop and make a straight line down, and b-b-bounce up and aorund. I want to see everyone’s capital and lowercase b's, and after I put a start on it I want you to make 9 more just like it.

 

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /b/ in frog or bun? Bite or kite? Money or bunny? Tub or sink? Sibling or sister? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth movement /b/ in some words. Bounce your ball if you hear /b/: big, work, rug, bat, hut, billion, great, bear, to, saw, brag, trash.

 

7. Say: “Now let’s read Bears of Blue River, by Charles Major.

   Booktalk: During the 1920’s Indiana was a baby state, full of great forests and of course the east bank of the Big Blue river. There is a young pioneer boy, Little Balser, who has many adventures in these woods and frightful encounters with bears! Let’s read the story to find out what happens to Little Balser.

 

After reading say: Now that we have read the book aloud once, let’s read through it again and look for all the /b/ sounds in the story. Every time you hear the /b/ sound, move your hand up and down like you are bouncing your basketball. Ask your students, “Can you think of any other funny words that begin with a /b/?” For example: I think that bazooka is a funny word! Have the students draw a picture that represents their funny word or invented spelling using the paper and crayons.

 

8. Show BAKE and mode how to decide if it is bake or make? The B shows us two balls which says /b/. We hear the /b/ when we say bake but not when we say make. Now you try some: BANG: rang or bang? MAD: mad or bad? BRAKE: brake or cake? BOOT: root or boot? HATE: hate or bait?

 

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet to the class. Students are to write the letter B and b; and color the pictures that begin with B. Call up students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

 

References:

 

Bears of Blue River by Charles Major -  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bears-of-blue-river-charles-major/1100110097?ean=9780913428375

 

Patrick, Kate: Bouncing with B! - http://www.auburn.edu/~kmp0026/patrickel.htm

 

Rice, Katie. Bouncing the Ball with B - http://www.auburn.edu/~ksr0009/RiceEL.htm

 

 

Worksheet Assessment:

Super Teacher Worksheets - http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-b_WFFMM.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

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