I love the tickler tale in this lesson and I think that it will help to engage children. 

Emergent Literacy Design: Lap Some Liquid with L

Rationale: This lesson will help children to identify /l/, the phoneme represented by L. Students will learn to recognize /l/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (lapping liquid) 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 “Larry lapped lots of liquid from the large lake” printed on it; coloring paper and markers; word cards with LOVE, LIKE, LOOK, PEER, and LIGHT; The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

 

Procedures:1. Say: Our written language can be difficult to understand. It can be hard to learn what letters stand for-the mouth movements me make when we talk. Today we’re going to work on spotting the mouth movement /l/. We spell /l/ with the letter L. The letter L sounds like lapping up some water. 

 

2. Let’s pretend to lap some liquid, /l/, /l/, /l/. [Pantomime lapping up water] Notice how your tongue moves to your top teeth? When we say /l/, our tongue moves up to touch our top teeth. 

 

3. Let me show you how to find /l/ in the word help. I’m going to stretch help out in super slow motion and listen for me to lap water. Hhh-e-e-elp. Slower: Hhh-e-e-e-lll-p There it was! I felt my tongue touch my top teeth. Lapping water /l/ is in help. 

 

4. Let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Lily loved to lick lemon lollipops. One day Lily tried long linguini with lots of lemon juice. Now she likes to have linguini with lots of lemon juice and a lavender latte. Here is our tongue tickler: “Lily loves lemon linguini and lavender lattes.” Let’s all say it three times together. Now let’s say it again, and this time, stretch the /l/ at beginning of the words. “Lllily llloves llllong lllemon lllinguini and lllavender lllattes.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/l/ ily /l/ oves /l/ emon /l/ inguini and /l/ avender /l/ attes.” 

 

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter L to spell /l/. Capital L has a corner in it. Let’s write lowercase l. Start just below the rooftop. Start to draw a line straight down. Then make a little tail before you get to the bottom of the fence. Now let’s make nine more just like it. 

 

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /l/ in leaf or work? Long or draw? Trip ormall? Park or life? Drive or fly? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /l/ in some words. Lap some water if you hear /l/: Arm, apple, fight, tile, land, worm, clown, cry, shell. 

 

7.“Say: "Let's look at a book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a funny creature called the lorax! The lorax is a creature who is trying to save trees from being cut down. Let’s see what happens and if he can save his home.” Read several pages of The Lorax. Then ask the children if they can invent their own word that starts with the letter L such as loofer or luppen.

 

8. Show LOVE and model how to decide if it is love or dove: The L tells me to lap my water, /l/, so this word is lllove, love. You try some: LIKE: like or bike? LOOK: look or book? PEER: peer or leer? LIGHT: light or fight? 

 

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with L. 

 

Assesment worksheet: https://www.myteachingstation.com/beginning-sound-of-the-letter-l

 

For more information: https://lch0027.wixsite.com/readingiscool/emergent-literacy  Learning L with Lollipops by Lindsey Hogan

 

Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963)