Lindsey Hancock, Lauren Hughes, and Annie Walker

Oral Language Activity

Phoneme Activity Description
A phoneme level activity that can be used with The Story of Ferdinand is
Scavenger Hunt. This activity focuses on letters. More specifically it prompts
students to recognize the initial letter sound in a word. Students are organized into
groups of four and each group is given a brown paper bag. The paper bag has a
letter on it and a picture of an object that begins with that letter. For the purpose of
this book, the suggested letters and items are as follows: B for bull, C for cow, J for
jump, L for leap, R for ring, M for man, H for hat, and F for fight. An example would
be a brown paper bag with the letter C at the top and a picture of a cow at the
bottom for one team and a brown paper bag with the letter M on it and a picture of
a man for another team. Students are then directed to start their scavenger hunt
around the room to find other items that start with the same letter as the one on
their bag. They are to put the items that the find inside their bag. They will have to
focus on the letter sound in order to complete this task. Give students two minutes
to collect their items and then regroup them to share their sound on the bag and
the objects they gathered. After each group shares, they can return their objects,
trade bags, and repeat the activity.
Standard
21.) Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds
(phonemes). [RF.1.2]
c. Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in
spoken single-syllable words. [RF.1.2c]
Oral language is the spoken form of communication. Often times in reading,
individuals do not consider oral language development to be important; however, it
is what paves the way for phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, phonics,
decoding, and reading comprehension. It serves as the foundation for reading skills
and is directly related to reading development. Due to this, teachers should make it
a priority to incorporate oral language instruction in their classroom. One
component of this instruction is the functions of language which include
instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative,
representational, divertive, authoritative, and perpetuating. Since each of these
listed functions are real-world and classroom-based oral language practice, there
are multiple ways that they can be implemented into teacher instruction. Among
those ways is using quality literature accompanied with puppets and a phoneme
activity. For the purpose of this project, the group chose to use The Story of
Ferdinand.
This book is written by Munro Leaf and it is a beautiful story about a young bull who
is not aggressive like his other friends. Not only is this a quality piece of literature,
but it also provides good opportunities to enhance the functions of language leading

to oral language development. One way that The Story of Ferdinand enhances the
function of language is through teacher interaction with the students as they read.
This keeps the students engaged, and ensures that they are learning. It also helps
the students in the comprehension process and allows them to voice any questions
or opinions that they might have concerning the book. Another way the The Story
of Ferdinand enhances language is through the imaginative function. This can be
done through dramatization of the book, puppet shows, storytelling, or a picture
walk. Using puppets to retell Ferdinands story engages the students and provides
new ways for them to learn and listen. In addition, this strategy can assist students
who do not learn well in a usual classroom setting and it provides a lesson extension
for students once they have read the book. They can model what the teacher does,
and this forces them to think creatively and critically about the story. The final way
that The Story of Ferdinand enhances language is through the phoneme activity
that the group implemented which was a scavenger hunt. In terms of the function
of language, this falls under the representational strategy. It helps students to
apply their knowledge in a fun, hands-on manner, as well as to think critically and
analyze certain situations. These three different strategies, interactional,
imaginative, and representational, can all be used with The Story of Ferdinand in
order to enhance its meaning for the students, and allow the students to learn as
much as possible about language.