/d/ Goes the D in Drum!

An Emergent Literacy Design, by Logan Bergeron

 

Rationale: The goal of this lesson is to help readers recognize the phoneme /d/, represented by the letter D. Students will be taught an analogy to the sound and gesture of beating a drum to help them distinguish /d/ in spoken words containing the letter D, as well as an alliterative sentence called a tongue tickler. They will also learn to write the letter D, then practice using the phoneme through a phoneme identifying activity and finding /d/ in words. Next, an alliterative book will be read to the student, emphasizing the /d/ sound. Finally, students will apply phoneme awareness through a rhyme making game and detecting /d/ through a phonetic cue reading assessment.

 

Materials:

• A picture of a snare drum and drumsticks with “Dd” printed above it

• Small poster with “Dan drew a dozen dancing dinosaurs” written or printed on it in a large and legible font

• Primary paper and several pencils; a large primary paper strip, dry erase board, or document projector to model handwriting

• Detective Dog and the Disappearing Doughnuts (Scholastic, 2001)

• Flashcards with the words DIG, MUG, DATE, DOG, HIVE, DEW, RING, and DREAD written or typed on them in a large, legible font

 

Procedures:

1. Say: Did you know that every word in our language has a special map that tells us how to say it? It’s like a treasure map for reading, and each word map is made up of letters! Now, what if I told you that every letter makes a sound? And when we make those sounds as a part of words, our mouths move in a special way for each sound that we make. Today we are going to learn about the sound and mouth movement for the letter D. [Display sound analogy picture of drum and drumsticks with the letters “Dd”]

2. The letter D says /d/, like a drum. [Pretend to hold drumsticks in two hands, or hold two pencils eraser side out, and alternate hitting an invisible snare drum, saying /d/ with each “beat”]. /d/ /d/ /d/ /d/ /d/… When you hit a drum, it sounds like /d/, just like the letter D! Now you try with me. Say /d/ as you hit the drum. [Hit invisible drum again, making the /d/ sound each time] /d/ /d/ /d/ …Notice how when we say /d/, your tongue quickly hits the top of your mouth just behind your teeth, just like our drumsticks quickly hit the drum? When our tongues hit that part of our mouths, our throat, or vocal cords, vibrate and we blow out a quick puff of air, making the /d/ sound for D! What a divine discovery!!!

3. Let me show you how I can find our sound and movement for D in the word sound. I am going to say the word slowly and listen for the drumming /d/. I have to listen carefully, because it’s very quick! Okay, here I go! Sss-ound… Ssss-ouund… Hm, let me try again, even slower. [Emphasize the /d/ more this time]. Ssss-oouun-d. Wait, I heard something! Sss-ouun-d! There it was at the end! [Drum] /d/! /d/! /d/! My tongue hit the top of my mouth and I heard drumming /d/ at the end of sound!

4. I am going to tell you a story about today’s tongue tickler. [Display tongue tickler poster] Dan loves to draw. Dan is also very silly. He always comes up with such funny pictures. His friends never know what he is going to draw next! Today, Dan drew a dozen dancing dinosaurs. That’s our tongue tickler for /d/ /d/ D! Let’s try it: “Dan drew a dozen dancing dinosaurs.” Now you say it, and each time the word starts with the letter D we are going to drum our /d/ sound before saying the word. [Drum the /d/ sounds] “/d/-/d/-Dan /d/-/d/-drew a /d/-/d/-dozen /d/-/d/-dancing /d/-/d/-dinosaurs.”

5. Now we are going to write our letter D to help us spell /d/. [Instruct students to pull out their primary paper and pencils and prepare to write] [You may choose to visually demonstrate this on a board, paper, or document projector as well while you give the initial verbal instructions] Big, capital D has a straight line that starts at the rooftop and goes alllll the way down to the sidewalk. Then, you make a curved line like a backwards C to touch the top of the line at the rood to the bottom of the line at the sidewalk. There, we’ve made our capital D. Little, lowercase d is different. First, we start with a circle, starting between the sidewalk and the fence. Go up and around to touch the fence, then down and around to touch the sidewalk, and finally go up and around a little more to get back to where you started. You should have a nice, small circle that looks like the top of a drum (or a little o). Once we finish our circle, we are going to draw a straight line right beside it on the right, starting at the rooftop and dropping allll the way to the sidewalk. You might say this line looks like our circle “drum’s” “drumstick” (or a little l). Ta-da! It is a little, lowercase d! Let’s draw 5 more of each D/d for practice. While you do that, I am going to walk around and put stars on the papers that have the nicest, neatest D/d’s, so try your best, okay?

6. Say: Let’s play a game! I am going to say two words. One of them is going to have our drumming /d/ in it. Then, I am going to call on someone and they are going to tell me which word they think has drumming /d/ in it and say why they chose that word. Ok, ready? Remember, don’t say the answer unless I call your name, and it is OK if we say the wrong word! Now, do you hear drumming /d/ in… [call on a different student with each word pair]

   1. Dog or Cat? Up or Down? Over or Under? Dance or Jump? Start or End? Dinner or Lunch?

7. Wonderful job finding drumming /d/ in those words! Next, I am going to say some words, and I want everyone to play their /d/ /d/ drums when they hear or see the mouth movement for D. Alright, here I go. Drum if you hear /d/: family, dad. truck, dinosaur, zebra, apple, disco, tea, color, doughnut.

8. Say: “I am now going to read a story for the letter D, called Detective Dog and the Disappearing Doughnuts. Detective Dog LOVES doughnuts! Every day, she stops by Dave’s Diner to eat a delicious doughnut. But oh no – today, Dave’s delicious doughnuts are missing! Detective Dog is on the case! Let’s read to see if she can find them!” Read the story, showing the pictures. Then briefly discuss the book (how they felt about the story, what D words they recall, etc.) and ask students if they can think of any other D words.

9. How about we play another game? This one is called Silly Dilly. I am going to name an object and I want you to make it start with the D sound /d/. That word is called a rhyme, For example, if I said “bee”, you would say “dee”. Got it? Some of the words we make will be real, but others will sound silly, and that’s okay! Let’s try one: If I say "pie”, you say… (die). [Give praise and go to the next word if they say the correct rhyme; if not, give a prompt (“if we put /d/ at the beginning of [word], that makes…?”) or gently correct with the rhyme and move on] Dazzling!

   1. Now let’s keep going: Kite? Mat? Cup? Paper? Ball? Pillow? Wow! You all were dandy at making those /d/ /d/ delightful rhymes!

10. For assessment, have the whole class work on drawing and coloring a picture of their favorite kind of doughnut [or as an alternate option, challenge them to come up with another “delicious D” food that they like]. Display their work in the class or hallway when completed. Meanwhile, call students to a separate table in a quieter area of the class in small groups or individually to read phonetic cue words using flashcards:

    1. We are going to do an activity just like our rhyming game, Silly Dilly, except this time we are going to read the word and then say if it is one word or another word that sounds almost like it. Here, I’ll show you. [Show DIG and model how to decide if it is rig or dig: D tells me to drum, /d/ /d/ /d/, so this word is /d /d/ dig, not rig.]

    2. Now you try a few – I will show you some words and tell you two words that it could be. You read the word and tell me which one it is:

    3. MUG: dug or mug? DATE: date or late? DOG: fog or dog? HIVE: dive or hive? DEW: dew or new? RING: ring or ding? DREAD: bread or dread? [Circle on your own copy what response was given and give praise at the end without giving any indicator of how they did.]

 

Resources: Here are some great references that I used while creating my lesson! Check them out to see more phoneme awareness activities. I have also included a short animation on writing the lowercase letter d which could be helpful for those struggling with writing the letter or not quite understanding the verbal instruction.

 

The book I used:

Garfield, Valerie, and Paul Harvey. Detective Dog and the Disappearing Doughnuts. Scholastic, 2001.

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Some more activities you may try:

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/lessons/tuning/

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A helpful guide for creating phoneme awareness lessons:

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/lessons/phon/

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An animation showing how to write the lowercase letter d:

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Animationletterd.gif

 

Logan Boyd, Eat Yummy Foods with M:

https://lolomakayla99.wixsite.com/mysite/eat-yummy-foods-with-m