Consonants on Parade Lesson 2: The Hard and Soft C

Improve visual and audio recognition of all consonant letters and increase recall of consonants and their sounds. Lively humorous stories, special sound effects, games, rhymes, puzzles, secret messages and illustrations heighten interest. Ideal for individuals and small groups, Consonants on Parade lessons are self-directing and self correcting enabling students to work through out the lessons independently, with private evaluation.

Lesson 2: Hard and Soft C
Objectives • to strengthen visual recognition of the letter C • to develop the ability to recognize the hard sound of C in the initial, medial, or final position • to develop the ability to recognize the soft sound of C in the initial, medial, or final position • to reinforce the ability to recognize and discriminate between the hard and the soft sounds of C 

Lesson 2 first introduces the sound of hard C, then teaches the sound of soft C, and finally, develops the student's ability to discriminate between the two sounds.

The lesson opens with an animal guessing game which introduces the students to the sound of hard C. The narrator then names eight objects pictured at the top of page 1. Each object has three C's printed in a row next to it. The students circle the first, second, or third C for each picture to indicate whether they hear the hard sound of C at the beginning, the middle, or at the end of the word. On the bottom half of the page, a series of words and pictures is used to introduce the soft sound of C in the initial, medial, and final positions.

At this point, the narrator introduces a vowel clue for determining whether a C is hard or soft The clue states; "If C is followed by E or I, C has the soft sound. If C is followed by any other letter, C has the hard sound."

At the top of page 2, students are presented with six pictures and three possible spellings of the word represented by each picture. Using aural clues, they determine which spelling is correct for each object.

On the last page, students are challenged to solve a "shapes" puzzle. First, they circle the number of each word in the list which contains a soft C sound. Next, they shade in the corresponding numbered shapes in the puzzle. If they do the work correctly, the word "CAN" will appear in block letters in the puzzle.