top of page

~Emergent Literacy Design:

“Bob bounced the bad basketball down the basketball court.”

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

Rationale: This lesson will aid children to identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Students will learn to recognize /b/ by seeing and visualizing the representations of the letter b by resembling a basketball bouncing down a basketball court. Children will practice finding /b/ in words and applying phoneme awareness by distinguishing between rhyming words from beginning letters.

​

Materials: Primary paper and pencils; chart with “Bob bounced the bad basketball down the basketball court”; print-outs of a basketball and a boy bouncing a basketball (link under references), crayons, (The Berenstains B Book) word cards with BAND, BAM, SAND, CRAB, BITE, CRAM, and SAND; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /b/ (URL below).

​

Procedures:

1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part to it is learning what letters stand for. Our mouths move as we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move for the letter /b/! There are many words with the letter b, so it is very important for us to know what it looks like and how it sounds. We spell /b/ with the letter B. Little b looks like a boy dunking a basketball into a net. Capital B looks like a bee or butterfly wings (draw an upper and lower case b to help explain).

​

2. First, we are going to practice how to say /b/. Now, everyone say /b/. If you noticed that when you put your lips together tightly (point to lips), and when we say /b/, you will fill your mouth with air then open and release the air by pushing the air out and making a /b/ sound.

​

3. Let me show you how to find the /b/ in SUB. I am going to stretch out the word SUB in super slow motion and you watch for my lips to come together and let out air with a deep buuuhhh sound. Sss-uuu-b. One more time ssss-uuuu-b. There it was! I felt my lops touch and let out big air. I can feel the /b/ sound at the end of sub.

​

4. Now it is time for a tongue twister (on chart). “Bob bounced the bad basketball down the basketball court.” Now lets say it again, but this time, stretch the /b/ at the beginning of the words. “Bbbob bbbounced the bbbad bbbasketball down the bbbasketball court.” Try it again, and this time break if off the word: “/B/ob /b/ounced the /b/ad /b/asketball down the /b/asketball court.”

​

5. (Have students take out primary paper and a pencil). We use the letter B to spell /b/. Capital B looks like a bee or a butterfly wings and a little b looks like a ball being dunked into a basketball goal.  Now lets write the lowercase b. Start at the rooftop come down to the sidewalk and back up to the fence and around to the right back down to the sidewalk for a half circle. I want to see everybody’s b. After I put a smiley face on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

​

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /b/ in sand or band? Bam or Ram? Sub or Sud? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move together to say /b/ in some words. Bounce the basketball if you hear /b/: the, bad, bunny, bopped, the, fluffy, bunny, on, the, back, and, yelled, bug.

​

7. Say: “Lets look at a book that talks about b’s. The Berenstain’s B Book has many different words with the letter b. The Berenstain’s tell us about this funny story when a baboon, bull, and a bear meet new people!” Read page 5, drawing out /b/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /b/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like Biffer-buffer-beff, or Booter-Blapper-band. Then have each student write their own silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display the students work so everyone can see each other's.

Show BITE and model how to decide if it is bite or kite: The B tells me to put my lips together and release a big breath of air that sounds like buuuuhhhh once in the word, so this word is bbb-ite, bite. You try some: BIKE: bike or sike? BAND: band or sand? CRAB: cram or cram?

9. For assessment, pass out the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the picture of the boy dribbling the basketball or the boy dunking the basketball into a net. I want you to color the boy and the basketball and I want you to outline the letter b with your crayons. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

 

References:

Adopted from Simantel, Sophie. A Beginning Reading Design, The Bounce Of B:The b of Bat and Ball.

https://sites.google.com/site/sophiessuperlessons/emergent-literacy-design

Assessment Worksheets: http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/learning-letters/b.htm

http://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?t=http://www.coloring.ws/sports/basketball/1.gif

http://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?t=http://www.coloring.ws/sports/basketball/8.gif

​

Cultivations Link:

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/cultivations.html

​

​

​

bottom of page