Mmmmm Mmmmm Good with M

Emergent Literacy Lesson

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 (rubbing our stomach in satisfaction) 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 (nice and mice.)

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Mom’s music must match mine"; drawing paper and crayons; ABC Book (Random House, 1984); word cards with mat, note, mix, most, and hop. Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /m/ (URL below).

Procedures:

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/ sounds like "mmmm mmmm yummy" when we like our food.

2. Let's pretend to rub our tummy, /m/, /m/, /m/. [Pantomime rubbing our tummy] Notice how your mouth is shaped. (Your lips are touching, we are blowing air from our throat to make the sound “mmmmm.”)

3. Let me show you how to find /m/ in the word lamp. I'm going to stretch lamp out in super slow motion and listen for the yummy. Lll-a-a-amp. Slower: Lll-a-a-a-mmm-p There it was! I felt my lips touch each other and my throat blow air. I can feel the yummy /m/ in lamp.

4. Let's try a tongue twister [on chart]. "Mom’s music must match mine." Let’s say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /m/ at the beginning of the words. "Mmmom’s mmmusic mmmust mmmatch mmmine." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/m/ om’s /m/ usic /m/ ust /m/ atch /m/ ine.

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter M to spell /m/. Let's write the lowercase letter m. Start at the fence and go to the sidewalk. Go back to the fence and make two humps. After the second hump, go back to the sidewalk. Now let me see your F and make nine more just like this one.

6. Now we are going to read different words and see if we can find the /m/ in them. [Call on student] Do you hear /m/ in mud or gun? [Call on student] Do you hear /m/ in lake or lime? [Call on student] Do you hear /m/ in time or shine? Now I am going to say a sentence, I want to see everyone rubbing their tummy when they hear the /m/. "My monkey, Mindy, mistakes me for my mom."

7. Now let's read the alphabet book and see the letter M. We are going to learn about the alphabet and the letters that are in the alphabet! I wonder what is going to happen in this story about our wonderful alphabet? Let's find out! What are some things on this page that you see that begin with the letter M? [Pass out paper and crayons] Tell students to come up with an animal of their choice and make up a name for their animal that begins with M. Then children can color their animal and write the name of their animal on the bottom of the paper (use invented spelling).

8. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to color the pictures of the words that begin with M.

Reference:

Megan Killen: “Ride Your Motorcycle with M”

Assessment worksheet

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