"Mmm, Mmm, Good" with M
Emergent Literacy Design
Rationale:
This
lesson will help children identify /m/, the phoneme represented by M.
Students will learn to recognize /m/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful
representation (delicious sound) and the letter symbol M, practice
finding /m/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /m/ in phonetic cue
reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials:
Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Mom must make many more muffins”; drawing
paper and crayons; word cards with MOM, MINE, MEET, MY,
and MOP; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /m/
Procedures:e
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 /m/. We spell /m/ with letter M. M
looks like lips, and /m/ sounds like “mmm mmm good”.
2.
Let’s pretend to eat something delicious, /m/, /m/, /m/. [rub your stomach]
Notice your lips come together? (making sound). When we say /m/, we put our lips
together and then push sound almost like a hum out of them.
3.
Let me show you how to find /f/ in the word left. I’m going to stretch
left out in super slow motion and listen for my toothbrush. Lll-e-e-eft.
Slower: Lll-e-e-e-fff-t There it was! I felt my teeth touch my lip and blow air.
I can feel the toothbrush /f/ in left.g
4.
Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. “Mom must make many more muffins.”
Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch
the /m/ at the beginning of the words. “Mmmom mmmust mmmake mmmany mmmore
mmmuffins.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/m/ om /m/ ust
/m/ make /m/ any /m/ore /m/ uffins.
5.
[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter M to
spell /m/. Lowercase m looks like lips. Let’s write the lowercase letter m.
Start on the fence. Make a line down to the sidewalk, back up and around to the
fence, back down, up and around to the fence again, and zoom down. I want to see
everybody’s m. After I put a smile 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 /m/ in monkeyor
dog? money or coin? marker or pen? make
or fix? more or less? Say: Let’s see if you can spot
the mouth move /m/ in some words. Rub your stomach if you hear /m/: The,
many, silly, monkeys, mopped, the, muddy, floor.
7.
Say: “Let’s look at the book I’m Hungry. The book tells us about a bunch
of hungry monkeys. What sound does the word monkey start with? What sound do we
make after we’ve just eaten something yummy? Mmm?” Read page 2, drawing out /m/.
Ask children if they can think of other words with /m/. Ask them to think of
what they would eat if they were hungry to make them say “mmm, mmm, good”? Then
have each student write their food item name with invented spelling and draw a
picture of it. Display their work.
8.
Show MOP and model how to decide if it is mop or top: The M
tells me to rub my stomach, /m/, so this word ismmm-op,
mop. You try some: MIX: mix or fix? MEET: meet or feet? MIND: find or
mind? MAKE: make or fake?
9.
For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial
spellings and color the pictures that begin with m.
