Buzzing Around with "B"
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Students will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (a buzzing bee) and the letter symbol B, practice finding /b/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
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Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Bens boat is bobbing in the blue bay”; picture of the boat bobbing in the bay; The Berenstain’s B Book; word cards with BOAT, BOB, BLUE, BAY, BEAT, BALL; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /b/ (URL below).
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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 were going to work on spotting the mouth move /b/. We spell /b/ with letter B. B looks like a bee and sounds like a buzzing bee.
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Let’s pretend to be a buzzing bee, /b/, /b/, /b/ UZZ. Do you notice when we make the sound /b/, our lips come together to make the noise?
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Let me show you how to find /b/ in the word blue. I am going to stretch blue out in super slow motion and listen for the buzzing bee. Bbb-ll-uu-ee. Slower: Bbbb-lll-uuu-eee. There it was! I felt my lips come together to make the sound /b/.
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Let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Present the child with a picture of the tongue tickler on it and say it together. “Bens boat is bobbing in the blue bay.” Repeat it once more. “The /b/ sound says buh. Every time you hear /b/, bob your head up and down like a boat. Now we will say it together and bob our head to /b/, but we are going to drag out the /b/.”
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[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter B to spell /b/. Capital B looks like a buzzing bee. Let’s write the lowercase b. Start just below the roof top and make a straight line down to the sidewalk. Then make a circle between the fence and the sidewalk. I want to see everybody’s b. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
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Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /b/ in ball or shoe? Sad or bad? Blue or purple? Foot or back? Lets see if you can spot the mouth move /b/ in some words. Buzz like a bee if you hear /b/: Bob, the, Builder, built, a, house, with, bricks.
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Say: Let’s look at The Berenstain’s B Book. This book tells about ALL the animals that begin with /b/. Ask children how many animals they can think of that begin with /b/. Let’s read the book and find out different animals that have /b/ in their names. Then have each student choose an animal from the book and write it with invented spelling and draw a picture of the animal. Display their work.
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Show BUMP and model how to decide if it is bump or hump: The B tells me to buzz like a bee, /b/, so this word is bbb-ump, bump. You try some: BAD: bad or mad? BAKE: rake or bake? BANK: bank or tank? BALL: call or ball? BAND: band or hand?
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For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students practice writing uppercase B and lowercase b and then circle the objects that start with letter ‘B’. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
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Kochenour, Anna. https://sites.google.com/site/mskochenoursclass/ctre-3710-lesson-publication.
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Murray, Bruce. The Reading Genie Website, http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/.
Assessment Worksheet: https://www.turtlediary.com/worksheet/identify-words-that-start-with-b.html