Dribble With Dan the Dinosaur 

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Emergent Literacy Lesson Design 

Perry Steed

 

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Rationale: This lesson will help students identify /d/, the phoneme represented by D. Students will learn to recognize /d/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (dribbling a basketball) and the letter symbol D, practice finding /d/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /d/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters. 

 

Materials: 

• Primary paper and pencil 

• Chart with tongue tickler: “Dribble with Dan the Dinosaur”

• Drawing paper and crayons 

• My “d” SOund Box by Jane Belk 

• Word cards with: DOG, DOLL, DUCK, DRUM, DANCE 

• Assessment worksheet identifying dictures with /d/. 

 

Procedures: 

1. The teacher says, “Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for. We move our mouths in a certain way when we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /d/. We spell /d/ with letter D. D looks like a circular ball, and /d/ sounds like the bouncing of a ball.

2. Let’s pretend to bounce a basketball, /d/, /d/, /d/. [Pantomime bouncing a ball up and down] Notice where your lips are (touching open lips). When we say /d/, we put our lips apart and let the air come out of our mouth. Our tongue also touches the top of our mouths. 

3. Let me show you how to find /d/ in the word band. I am going to stretch band out in very slow motion and listen for the bouncing ball. Bbb-aa-and. Slower: Bbb-a-a-a-nnn-d. There it was! I felt my tongue hit the roof of my mouth and my lips opened. Bouncing ball /d/ is in band. 

4. Let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Dan has a dozen defenders on his team. Don’t let the opponents dribble down the court to dominate. Here’s our tickler: “Dribble with Dan the dinosaur.” Everybody say it together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /d/ at the beginning  of the words. “Dddribble with Dddan the ddddinosaur.” Try  it  again, and this time break it off the word. “/d/ ribble with /d/ an the /d/ inosaur.”

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter D to spell /d/. Capital D looks like a round ball, but lowercase d looks like a ball on a stick.  Let's write the lowercase letter d. Start at the top of the fence and make a little c. Then, start at the top of the rooftop and make a vertical line down to the ground. To make a lowercase d we do little c then little d. When I count to three, I want you all to practice making 9 little d’s!

6. Call on students to answer and ask them to tell how they knew: Do you here /d/ in cat or dog? Lift or drop? Jump or land? Dance or sing? Road or ditch? Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /d/ in some words. Bounce your ball when you hear /d/: The, dancing, dog, does, not, do, the, dico, dance, right. 

7. Say: “Now we’re going to look at the book My “d” Sound Box. The author, Jane Belk, tells us about a girl named Little d who puts all of her dolls into a box. What does Little d do with her dolls? We will have to read to find out!” Read the book and have students dribble the imaginary basketball every time they hear the sound /d/ in the book. After reading, draw out the letter /d/. Then, ask the students to come up with a silly name for a doll like DDD-onnn-aa-ll-d-ddd-ooo, or DDD-iii-ttt-ee-rr-dd-oo-nn-gg. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.

8. Show DOG and model how to decide if it is dog or fog: The D tells me to bounce my ball and put my lips apart, /d/, so this word is ddd-og, dog.  You try some: DOLL: doll or call? DUCK: duck or tuck? DRUM: drum or plum? DANCE: dance or prance? 

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will trace the letter D d and then color the pictures that begin with D. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

 

References: 

• Murray, Bruce. (2012). Making Sight Words

• Assessment worksheet: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-d_WFFZB.pdf

• Brown, Caitlin “Digging in the Dirt with D” https://caitlinbb.weebly.com/emergent-literacy-design.html

• Hughes, Ivy “Derek D. Digs in the Dirt” https://ivyhughes0004.wixsite.com/iah0004/emergent-literacy-design

• Belk, Jane (1984). My “d” Sound Box. Elgin, Ill. : Child's World ; Chicago, Ill. : Distributed by Children's Press. 

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