Emergent Literacy Lesson

All Aboard the Choo-Choo Train (Ch-ch-ch-)

An Emergent Literacy Lesson

Rationale: This lesson will teach the child the sound the phoneme /ch/ makes /ch/ = ch. The phoneme /ch/ will be represented by the sound a train makes as it climbs the mountain, ch, ch, ch. Students will also recognize the consonant digraph symbol ch, practice finding /ch/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /ch/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Materials:

Primary paper and a pencil
Chart with “Chimps and cheetahs choose chocolate over cheese.”
Crayons and printed worksheets
Book “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” (Simon and Schuster, 1989)
Cards with the following words printed on them: Child, Tree, Cherry, Blue,

Chant, Plum

Procedures:

Say: The tricky part of learning our written language is learning what each letter sounds like. Each letter has a special sound, but sometimes that sound changes when it appears next to another letter. For example the letter c makes the /c/ sound and the letter h makes the /h/ sound. But, when you put the two letters together, they make the sound /ch/. Just like a choo-choo train, ch says /ch/ /ch/ /ch/.
Lets pretend to be a train climbing the hill. Everyone stand up and move your arms in a circle, like the wheels of the train. As you move around the room, make the /ch/ /ch/ /ch/ sound. Allow the students to make one lap around the classroom, then tell them to freeze and keep their mouths frozen, too. Then say, Notice how your mouth is shaped to make the /ch/ sound. Your lips should be pursed and your tongue should be just below you top front teeth. When you blow air between your top teeth and tongue, it will sound like the train.
Now let’s try to find our phoneme in a spoken word. I want you to tell me when you hear the train in the word archer. Ah-r-ch-r, ahhh-rrr-chhh-rrrrr. There it was! Right in the middle! I felt my lips purse and the air flow between my teeth and tongue.
Let’s try the tongue tickler that’s on the chart! “Chimps and cheetahs choose chocolate over cheese. Everyone say it together three times. Now say it one final time and really stretch out the /ch/ sound. Chhhimps and chhhhetahs chhhhoose chhhocolate over chhheese.
[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. As you’ll recall, the /ch/ sound is made when a c and an h get together. I want everyone to draw a c and h beside each other. After you’ve finished, bring it me for approval. When you get a sticker, I’d like you to continue and write the ch digraph 9 more times.
Choose individual students to answer each question aloud. Do you hear /ch/ in seat or chair? Catch or throw? Milk or cheese? Feel or touch? Then address the whole class and say, “Now I’m going to say a sentence and if you hear the /ch/ /ch/ /ch/ choo choo train in a word, then I want you to make the train wheels motion with your arms. The charming chicken chopped a big juicy chimichanga.
Now say: We are now going to read the book “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.” This is a story about all the letters in the alphabet and their adventures with a coconut tree. Whenever you hear the train coming, I want you to move your arms in a circle like the wheels. After we are finished, I want you to write stories with silly words like chicka chicka. When you are finished writing your story, draw pictures to show the class.
Show CHUNK and model how to decide if it is chunk or funk. The ch tells me the train is coming, /ch/, so this word is chhh-unk. You try some: CHART: dart or chart? BUG: chug or bug? DROP: chop or drop? CHAT: cat or chat? CHIN: chin or fin?
For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will color the boxes that have the /ch/ sound in them. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step 8.

Reference: https://sites.google.com/site/carolinesexcitinglessons/home/bob-and-betty-beating-the-drums-with-b
Worksheet: http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics/ch-word-color_WBWMN.pdf

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