Cross-Language Analysis - 5 Mini-Lessons

Lesson 1

‘h’ sound – This phoneme is unique, since it is different in English and Spanish, but is represented by the same grapheme.

Objective: Students are able to produce and recognize the ‘h’ sound in English.

Procedures

     Engage – Students will be given a special list of words that begin with the ‘h’ sound. The students will be asked to read the list of words out loud. Then students will take off the letters that make the ‘h’ sound and write down the new word created. Through this activity with minimal pairs students can hear the difference in the words with and without the initial ‘h’ sound. Example: hear – ear.

     Explore – Students will use their dictionaries to find other words that begin with the ‘h’ sound. Students will make sentences using words they find. Students will pick their best sentence to share with a partner.

     Explain – Teacher will then explain how the ‘h’ in Spanish does not make a sound however in English it does. The teacher will model and explain how to make the ‘h’ sound properly. The teacher will also explain how some words that behind with wh will also make the ‘h’ sound if followed by a oo sound. For example: who, whose.

     Elaborate – Students will try to find other words that can be made by removing the initial ‘h’ sound.

    Evaluation - Students will listen to words pronounced out loud by the teacher. They will hold up a sign to say show if they heard the ‘h’ sound in the word pronounced.  Teacher will notate if students miss more than 3 in 10 trials. If students miss 4 or more ‘h’ sounds the teacher will need to plan a small group lesson to re-teach and reinforce this concept with these learners.

Lesson 2

The ‘z’ sound – This phoneme does not exist in the Spanish language.

Objective: Students will be able to produce and recognize the ‘z’ sound in English.

Procedures

     Engage – Teacher will begin my showing students a video of a fly. Have students listen to the sound the fly makes. Students then imitate the fly sound.

     Explore – Have class read a book focused on the ‘z’ sound. Students underline each time they hear the ‘z’ sound.

     Explain – After reviewing the ‘z’ sound the teacher will make an anchor chart shaped or colored like a zebra. The chart will include the letters z, x, and c, with examples of common words for each letter.

     Elaborate – Class will separate into three groups to make posters that include examples of words that make a ‘z’ sound for the letters z, x, and c.

    Evaluation - Students will be given a list of words, they will read and circle the words with the ‘z’ sound. If students miss more than 30% of the ‘z’ sound words they will need to be re-taught the lesson in a different way.

Lesson 3

The ‘th’ sound - This sound blend does not exist in Spanish.

Objective: Students will be able to correctly pronounce and produce words with the ‘th’ sound in different positions within a word.

Procedures

     Engage – each student will receive a card with a word on it that contains the ‘th’ sound either in the initial, middle, or ending syllable. Students will then move to the corresponding classroom corner according to the position of the ‘th’ sound in their word. For example all the students with initial ‘th’ sounding words would go to one corner of the room.

     Explore – Groups will then try and come up with a least 5 more words that fit into their category.

     Explain – Teacher will model and students will repeat practicing the ‘th’ sound. Teacher explains and demonstrates how the mouth and tongue must be placed in order to make the ‘th’ sound.

     Elaborate - Groups will rotate to look at other group’s cards and practice saying their words.

    Evaluation - Students will go around in a circle a say a sentence or two using one of the ‘th’ words. Students who do not correctly pronounce the ‘th’ sound should take place in a small group intervention for further practice.

Lesson 4

The ‘g’ sound – This phoneme has multiple pronunciations.

Objective: Students will be able to distinguish between the hard and soft g sounds and know how to pronounce given words using spelling pattern knowledge.

Procedures

     Engage - Students will be given a set of words with the ‘g’ sound. Students begin by reading each card with a partner.

     Explore – Because some words will contain the soft g sound while others will have the hard g sound, students must re-read the cards out loud and try and separate them into two piles based on the differences in sound they hear.

     Explain – The teacher will explain how the soft ‘g’ sound is normally used when the letter g is followed by e, i, or y. Students will write this rule in their notebooks. For example: gem, giant, gypsy for the soft ‘g’ sound and gas, go, glue, green for the hard ‘g’ sound. Teacher should also point out exceptions to the rule that students will simply need to memorize.

     Elaborate – Based on the new rule, students will try and come up with some new words that contain the different spelling patterns. Once students finish their self-made lists they will share with the teacher or with the whole class.

     Evaluation - Teacher will project a list of sentences that contain the hard and soft ‘g’ sounds in each sentence. Students will be randomly selected to read a sentence of their choice from the page. Students will have mastered the objective if the sentences are pronounced correctly using the hard and soft g sounds. Examples of sentences can be found on the following website: http://www.theschoolhouse.us/lessons/lesson53.html

Lesson 5

The ‘j’ sound – This phoneme is sometimes pronounced differently in English than in Spanish. Also it has multiple graphemes to represent one phoneme.

Objective: The student will be able to distinguish between the ‘j’ sounds and other sounds.

Procedures

     Engage – The teacher will write a few words on the board, one at a time for students to sound out letter by letter. When students say a letter that makes the ‘j’ sound they stand up and if it does not make the ‘j’ sound they remain seated. For example: majestic. M-sit a-sit j-stand e-sit, etc.

     Explore – Students will complete a word sort with various words that contain the ‘j’, ‘g’, and ‘h’ sounds. Students must sort the words according to sound, not letter.

     Explain – The teacher will explain how some words have the letter j while others have a g but both are pronounced with the ‘j’ sound. The words with the letter ‘h’ are to reinforce the ‘h’ sound in English which can be confusing since the ‘h’ sound in English is written j in Spanish.

     Elaborate – Students re-write the words from the word sort in their notebooks, tracing the ‘j’ sounding letter with a different colored crayon or marker.

      Evaluation - Students listen to the teacher pronounce two words at a time. One of the words will contain the ‘j’ sound and the other will not. Students are to write down the word with the ‘j’ sound in their notebooks. Students should correctly identify 4 out of 5 words with the ‘j’ sound.