Pop Your P's Like Popcorn
Emergent Literacy
Rationale:
In order for children to
become good readers, they must have a strong foundation in letter recognition
and phonemic awareness. The goal of this lesson is to help children become
familiar with the phoneme /p/ which is represented by the letter P. Students
will learn tp identify /p/ in spoken words through a meaningful representation
(popping popcorn) and will also learn to write the letter symbol for P.
Materials:
-picture of a pig
-picture of popcorn
-printer paper cut into
strips (one strip for each student)
-chart with "Peter Piper
picked a peck of pickled peppers"
-primary paper
-pencils
-smiley stickers
-If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura
Numeroff
-Flash cards (PINK, PAN, POT, PAIN, FAT, PIG)
-P worksheet with pictures
for students to color
Procedures:
1. To begin the lesson, explain to the students
that different letters make different sounds just like animals and our mouths
move in different ways for each letter/sound.
"Today we will be working on the letter P." (hold up a picture of a pig) "Can
anyone tell me what this is?" Great job! And what sound does a pig make? That's
right, a pig says 'oink'! Well, just like different animals make different
sounds, different letters in our alphabet also make different sounds and our
mouths move in different ways for each sound."
2. Ask the students, "Have you ever heard
popcorn popping in the microwave? What did it sound like? Let's try to make that
same sound with our mouths. Great job! That is the same sound that the letter P
makes, /p/. The same sound is heard at the beginning of the word
park. Watch my mouth as I say the
word park and stretch out the /p/ at
the beginning. P-p-p-p-park. Did you hear the popping sound at the beginning? To
make the /p/ sound, you press your lips and push a burst of air through your
lips. Let's try that together several times.
3. Use strips of printer paper to have the
students do an individual assessment to check and make sure that they are
forming the right sound.
"There is a way we can check and make sure we are forming the right sound with
our mouths. Watch what happens to this strip of paper as I hold it in front of
my mouth as I am making the /p/ sound. What happened to the paper? That's right!
As I formed the /p/ sound, the paper moved as the air was pressed through my
lips." (pass strips of paper to the class) "Now I want you to try on your own.
Did the paper move?"
4. Show the students how they can stretch out
words to find the appropriate sound.
"Let me show you how to find the /p/ in the word
hop. I am going to stretch out
hop in slow motion so that I can hear
each individual sound and find my "popping popcorn" sound. Hhh-o-o-op. Slower:
Hhhh-o-o-o-ppp. There it was! I hear my "popping popcorn" sound at the end of
the word hop.
5. Have the students say a tongue twister (on
chart) as a class to obtain more practice with the new sound.
"Let's try this fun tongue twister to practice our /p/ sound. 'Peter Piper
picked a peck of pickled peppers' Let's all say it together three times. Now
let's try it again and stretch out the /p/ sound in the words. "Pppeter
Pppippper pppicked a pppeck of pppickled pppepppers." Now let's try it one more
time and break of the /p/ sound in the words. "/p/
eter /p/ I /p/ er /p/ icked a /p/ eck of /p/ ickled
/p/ e /p/ ers" Good job!
6. Have the students practice
forming the lowercase letter p.
"Now take out your primary paper and a pencil and we are going to practice
writing the lowercase letter p. Watch me do it first and then we will try it
together. I am going to start at the fence and make a straight line down into
the ditch. Then I am going to pick up my pencil and put it back where I started.
Now I am going draw a half circle from the fence and connect the bottom to the
stick so that his chin is resting on the sidewalk. Now you try and I am going to
walk around and help you. Once I put a sticker on your paper I want you to draw
10 more p's just like that." (walk around and guide students who are having
trouble and place smiley stickers on papers that are complete.)
7. In order to assess student
understanding, give them words and ask which word has the /p/ sound.
"Now let's play a game. I want everyone to crouch down on the floor next to your
desk. I am going to say some words and I want you to pop up like popcorn and
make the /p/ sound when you hear it.
Puddle, rock, pop, dot, sad, happy, open, close, blue, purple, lamp, lid, sit,
lip, pig, cow, pink, jump, mat. (words can be said in any order) Very Good!"
8. Read
If You Give a Pig a Pancake.
"Now everyone sit back in your desk. I am going to read a story called
If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Now that
sounds like a very silly book! What do you think would happen if you gave a pig
a pancake? Well we are going to read it and I want you to listen closely and
every time you hear the /p/ sound I want you to clap. I will make a list of the
word that you think have the /p/ sound in them and we will talk about them after
I read the story." After completing the story, talk about each word and stretch
out each word to test for the /p/ sound.
9. After the story, have the students practice
applying phoneme awareness in phonetic cue reading by reading the first letters
of several rhyming words.
"I am going to show you some flash cards with a word on it and I want you to use
what you know about the letter p to read the words. (Show PINK and model how to
decide if the word is PINK or SINK) The P tells me to pop my popcorn, /p/, so
this word is p-ink, pink. Now you try. Is this word PAN: pan or ran? POT: Pot or
dot? PAIN: pain or rain? FAT: fat or pat? PIG: big or pig?"
Assessment:
10. For assessment, the students
will complete a worksheet that has them trace the letter p and color items that
have the /p/ sound in them. The worksheet contains pictures of things that
contain the /p/ sound as well as things that do not and the students will have
to decide what should be colored and what should not. We will name each picture
as a class before they begin so that they are not confused as to what the
picture is showing. Call individual students over to read the phonetic cue cards
from step #9.
References:
Matthews, Pearson. "Popping Popcorn."
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/adventures/mathewsel.htm
Murray,
Bruce. "Brush Your Teeth With F: Emergent
Literacy."
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html
Taylor, Bailey. "Popping P's."
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/caravans/taylorel.htm
Assessment Worksheet:
http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-p.pdf
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