1. 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 we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /d/. We spell /d/ with letter D. D looks like a dinosaur, and /d/ sounds like a dinosaur dancing.

 

2. Let's pretend were a dinosaur dancing, /d/, /d/, /d/. [Pantomime stomping like a dinosaur] Where does your tongue go? (Touching the roof of our mouth and the back of our top teeth). When we say /d/, we bring our tongue to the top of our mouth.

 

3. Let me show you how to find /d/ in the word dress. I'm going to stretch dress out in super slow motion and listen for my dinosaur dancing. dd-r-e-ss. Slower this time: ddd-rr-e-e-ss There it was! I felt my tongue touch the top of my mouth. Dinosaur /d/ is in dress. 

 

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Daniel just got a new puppy. His puppy’s name is Daisy. Sometimes Daisy misbehaves and digs in the dirt even though she’s not supposed to. Here’s our tickler: "Daniel’s dog Daisy digs in the dirt." Now let’s say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /d/ at the beginning of the words. "Dddaniel’s dddog Dddaisy dddigs in the dddirt." Let’s try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/d/ aniel's /d/ og /d/ aisy /d/ igs in the /d/ irt. 

 

5. [Students will take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter D to spell /d/. Capital D looks like a dinosaur. Let's write the lowercase letter d. Start by writing the letter c and draw a straight line behind it. I want to see everybody's d. I will come around and put a smile on your paper and then I want you to make nine more just like it.

 

6. Let’s listen to see if we can hear /d/ in some words. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /d/ in floor or door? desk or chair? day or night? food or water? Say: Let's see if you can spot the /d/ in some words. Dance like a dinosaur if you hear /d/: The, dark, blue, dinosaur, danced, to music, during the day.  

 

7."Now let's look at the book Don and Dots by Veronica Angel. In this book, Don loves dots. He puts dots on pans and pots and even his rat Tom. Don’s dotting starts to get out of control. We’ll have to read to see what happens when Don puts dots on something he’s not supposed to. We will read the book and dance like a dinosaur when we hear the /d/ sound. After reading we will decorate our own letter D’s with dots. The work will be displayed. 

 

8. Show DAY and model how to decide if it is day or may: The D tells me to dance like a dinosaur, /d/, so this word is ddd-ay,day. Now you try some: DOG: dog or log? DAD: sad or dad? DEER: deer or hear? DRESS: dress or mess? DANCE: chance or dance?

 

9. For assessment, hand out the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with D. Then students will be called individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.