LESSON PLAN- Letter R Focus

JMU Elementary Education Program

Kindergarten
Emma Wesley
Mrs. Close
12/08/2020 10:30am-11:00am

A. Language Arts-Green/Blue Group

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
This lesson will focus on helping students practice saying the “R” sound and help them identify words that start with
“R”. This lesson enhances the student’s phonemic awareness skills as they will start out with some Heggerty phonemic
awareness practice where they will have the chance to rhyme words, find the onset of words, blend phonemes together
and find the middle sound of words. These skills are the beginning pieces that build strong readers in Kindergarteners.
Every Wednesday and Friday, the teacher practices a Heggerty phonemic awareness skills. The students are really
starting to understand how to rhyme words, blend sounds and isolate certain sounds of words. They have been
practicing these skills since the beginning of the school year.
Practice.
C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand – what are the broad Know – what are the facts, rules, Do – what are the specific thinking
generalizations the students should specific data the students will gain behaviors students will be able to do
begin to develop? (These are through this lesson? (These “knows” through this lesson? (These will also
typically difficult to assess in one must be assessed in your lesson.) be assessed in your lesson.)
lesson.)
Students will understand that they Students will know the sounds of Students will be able to find the
can create rhyming words by the letter “R.” beginning sounds of words.
adding different letters in front of
the word family: “ad”. Students will be able to identify
the middle sounds of words.
Students will understand that there
are many words that have the Students will identify words that
letter “R” in them. have the letter “R” in them.

D. ASSESSING LEARNING

Students will know the sounds of the letter “R.”- I will hold up the “R” Zoo phonics letter and have students
say the sound and motion that goes with this letter. I will use a checklist to determine if students could match
the letter to the sound. If I am having trouble hearing a student, I will ask them individually to say the sound
that “R” makes.
Students will be able to find the beginning sounds of words.- I will ask for a few students to tell me what
sound they hear at the beginning of certain words. I will have students write on their whiteboard the sound
that they hear . I will use sticky notes to take notes of which students were able to correctly identify the
sound they hear. I will have students show me a “thumbs up or down motion” to have students to tell me if
they agree with the beginning sounds that are displayed on my whiteboard
Students will be able to identify the middle sounds of words.- I will have students write the middle sounds
that they hear in words on a white board. I will use sticky notes to take notes of which students were able to
correctly identify the sound. I will have students show me a “thumbs up or down motion” to have students to
tell me if they agree with the beginning sounds that are displayed on my whiteboard
Students will identify words that have the letter “R” in them.- I will have students show me a “thumbs up or
thumbs down” if they agree to where the “R” word should be placed. I be using a checklist to determine
which students could find words the “R” sound and which could not.

E. K.4 b) Identify and produce words that rhyme.

d) Segment one-syllable words into speech sound units including beginning phoneme(s)
(onset) and ending (rimes).
e) Identify words according to shared beginning and/or ending sounds.
K.7 d) Identify beginning consonant sounds in single-syllable words.

F. MATERIALS NEEDED
White Board-Students
Zoo phonics letters -Teacher
Heggerity Phonemic Awareness Guide - Teacher
R Sorting Activity-Teacher
It Is Raining-Teacher
The Gingerbread Baby- Teacher
Pizza Trey Rhyming board

G. PROCEDURE

Note: This seems like a lot of different activities to do in a sort amount of time. However, the
students are familiar with these different learning activities as they have these types of
structured learning activities every day for Literacy.

Warm-up (2 minutes)
The teacher will show the students various zoo phonics letters and tell students to “Say the
name of the letter, its sound and the motion that goes along with it”

Heggerty (10 minutes )

The teacher will ask for students to get their white boards out
The teacher will tell students that first we are going to be rhyming with the word family “ad”
The teacher will say “Can someone with a raised hand , tell me a word that rhymes with “ad”
The teacher will call on several students to answer
The teacher will then slide different letters in front of the letters “ad” to create many words
such as “lad, mad, bad, dad, sad, rad(etc)
Students will be able to sound out words when the beginning sound changes
The teacher will tell the students “ we are now going to be listening to the beginning sounds in
some words
The teacher will say “write down the first sound that you hear on your white board and then
hold up your white board so that I can see it”
The teacher will read the words: Option, Otter, Form, Act, Down, Door, It, Feel
The teacher will look to see which students find the correct sound
The teacher will make note of this using a checklist and sticky notes
The teacher will call on a student to share the letter that they wrote down on their white board.
The teacher will tell the students we are now going to find the middle sound of some words by
using our roller coaster motion
The teacher will tell students to put the first sound at the bottom of their roller coaster, the
middle sound at the top and last sound at the bottom
The teacher will ask for the students to write the middle sound that they hear on their white
boards
The teacher will ask for the students to show her their white boards once they have finished
writing down the middle sound that they hear
The teacher will read the following words one at a time: Sip, Nod, Has, Lot and Him
 After each word is read aloud the teacher will check for understanding to see what letter
students wrote down as the middle sound for each word
The teacher will make a note of which students could and could not find the middle sound of
the words by using sticky notes and a checklist
The teacher will ask for a student to share the sound that they heard in the middle of the word.
The teacher will tell the students to put their white boards to the side

The Letter R (10 minutes)

The teacher will show the Zoo Phonics letter “R”, students will say the letter, the sound and
the motion that goes with the letter “R”
The teacher will pull up a seesaw activity on her computer
The teacher will show the students various pictures of items
The students will help the teacher categorize the words into either “R Words” or “Other
words”
The teacher will ask for the students to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down if they disagree
where a word is placed
The teacher will play “It is Raining” and remind students to put a thumb up when they hear an
“R’ sound
The teacher will ask the class what is one word that begins with “R” in the song, the teacher
will call on a few student with a raised hand to tell her an “R” word in the poem

Story (6 minutes)
The teacher will show the cover of the Gingerbread Baby
The teacher will ask “How might this story be different from the other versions of the
gingerbread man that we have read”
The students will tell the teacher their predictions
The teacher will play the read aloud of the Gingerbread Baby
The teacher will pause the video and ask for students to name some of the characters that
chased after the gingerbread baby
The teacher will tell the students that they will finish the story during small group time

H. DIFFERENTIATION
This lesson will be taught to both the lower groups and the higher groups. The lower groups which are
the Red/Yellow group, have not yet mastered their sounds and their letters. This group will spend
more time reviewing their Zoo phonics letter in comparison to the Blue/ Green group who have
mastered their letters and sounds. The yellow and red group will need more guidance sounding out and
blending words. The teacher will place different letters in front of certain word families to help them
understand that the word change when different sounds are placed in front of the word. The Red/
Yellow group will be called on individually to blend words and sound as it is a smaller group of
students that take longer to complete tasks.

I. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
The students could unmute themselves and talk over each other- I will remind students to stay muted
and share something when they are ready to share. I will mute a student myself if I need to

Some students could be upset that I did not call on them- I will remind students that during our class
we take turns to speak and share, I will tell a student to take a screen break if need be

Some students may not be able to find their white board- I will have students use a piece of paper to
write down their letters
Students might be easily distracted – I will encourage students to frame up in the screen. I will play a
“Brain Break” if students are seeming like they have a lot of energy and need a break from learning

We may not have time to read the story- I will tell students that we will read the story during our small
group time
Lesson Implementation Reflection
As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, think about the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to
guide your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.

I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes and explain why
you made them.
In my actual teaching of the lesson, I did not include the Letter R activity because I felt that it was important to start
the story. The students seemed to be having a little trouble staying engaged and I knew that talking about the story and
reading the story would grab their attention and help them stay focused.

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on student learning? Did
they learn? Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence can you offer that your conclusions are
valid?

I learned that most students except for one had trouble with rhythming. All the students that were present
on zoom were able to say and identify the sounds that the letter R makes. I used to check list to which
students could find the onset and the middle sound of words. About five students had trouble finding the
onset for some words. Most students could find the middle sounds of the words that I read.

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more
thorough way if you were to teach this lesson again.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I would have students practice saying the onset and middle sounds in
groups of two. This way, I would give them a chance to listen to their fellow classmates and it would not
have them talk over each other. I would also have a song about the letter R that involved them getting up
and dancing.

IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were the classroom
teacher?
I would teach a lesson that focused on finding the beginning sounds of words that started with an “O” and “F”.
Based on the data I collected students struggled with this the most.

V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about young
children as learners?

I learned they sometimes need a brain break or movement in the middle of a lesson if they are having trouble paying
attention.

VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about teaching?

I learned that it is important to have some “back-up” plans if students are not responding well to the lesson that you
had planned. It was helpful that I had a lot of activities planned so that when students were not responding well or
seemed unengaged, I could move on to the next activity.

VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about yourself?

I learned that I enjoy teaching reading and that it is something that I am interested in doing more of in the
Kindergarten classroom!