POP, POP, POPCORN
Emergent Literacy Design
 
Kincey Hicks

Rationale:  This is a very useful lesson in teaching the correspondence /p/=/p/.  The letter p is often difficult in learning letter recognition and hopefully this lesson will be useful in giving some differentiation in several easily mistaken letters. 

Materials:
-Primary paper
-“P” cards
-Pencils
-Pictures of words beginning in P:  pickle, puddle, purple, penguin, playground,  popcorn, and pencil
-Pictures of words with the /p/=/p/ correspondence somewhere else in the word:  apple, cap, happy, tap, dip, and open
-A fun tongue-twister with the letter P:  Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers
-"Piggy in the Puddle" by Charles Pomerantz

Procedures:

1.   Say: “Today we are going to learn about the P sound. I bet you have heard the P sound in many different words.  We are going to work together to find the P sound and what it looks like so we will be able to recognize it in words we have never seen.”

2.   Say: “First let’s start by making the P sound.  P says p, pppppp, p. can you say p? [pppp] Great! Can anyone tell me a word they know that starts with the p sound? [play] Great! Anyone else? [popcorn] Awesome, that is exactly the word I want us to work with today to remember the p sound.  Now, what does the popcorn do when it pops, show me with your hands. Good, make a fist and pop it out.  Great!”

3.   Let’s try this tongue twister [on the board]. “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers” “Now you say it with me three times. [demonstrate and attempt] Now let’s try it again, only this time let’s stretch our p sound and pop our popcorn fists when we say it.  Pppppeter Ppppiper Pppppicked a Ppppeck of Pppppickled Ppppeppers.  Now this time let’s say our popcorn sound first, then the rest of the word by itself.  /P/eter /P/iper /P/icked a /P/eck of /P/ickled /P/eppers.” [attempt]

4.   Say: “Okay, now we are going to practice writing the letter p on paper to represent the sound /p/. [primary paper and pencils needed] Let’s being on the fence line. Take your line straight down into the ditch, come up and put your chin on the sidewalk. [write on the board to model] Now, I want everyone to make the letter p. I will come around and give you a check on your paper when you it correctly, then I want you to make nine more p’s on your paper. Great Job! Now you know what letter makes a ppppopping sound!

5.   Say: “Now let’s see if you can spot the mouth movement we use to make the p sound in words. [take out letter cards] I will say the word and if you hear /p/ in that word hold up your P card. [Give words one by one.] parrot, purse, horse, up, down, computer, pink, kick.

6.   Read Piggy in the Puddle and talk about the story. Say: “Now we are going to read Piggy in the Puddle. This story is about pigs who spend their day playing in the puddle, let’s read and find out what all these pigs get into.” After reading the text, read it again and have the students raise their hands when they hear the /p/ sound in words. List the words on the board. “Now let’s say each word listed as a group and stretch the ppppp sound in each word. Have each students draw a picture about what happened in the story and write a message using invented spelling to describe their picture. Display the work on the /p/ phoneme bulletin board. 

7.   Assess the students knowledge of p=/p/ by giving them the papers with p pictures on them, some will not have the p sound and some will. Go over what each picture is before getting started. The students will color in the pictures that have the ppppp sound and leave the others white

References:

Murray, Bruce, class notes and lectures

Reading Genie Website

Piggy in the Puddle, Charles Pomerantz, Publisher:  Simon & Schuster

Click here to return to Perspectives