Emergent Literacy
Ashley Wild
Rationale: To learn to read and spell words, children need the alphabetic insight that letters stand for phonemes and spellings map out the phonemes in spoken words. Before children can match letters to phonemes, they have to recognize phonemes in spoken word contexts. This lesson focuses on the /m/ phoneme. The goal of this lesson is that children will learn to identify /m/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation and a letter symbol, and then practice finding /m/ in printed words.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil for each student; chart with “On Mondays Michael's mother Mary mostly mopped”; class set of cards with m on one side and a question mark on the other; If You Give A Moose A Muffin book by Laura Joffe Numeroff; picture page with monkey, dog, man, cat, cookie, marker, jam, ball, moose, door, girl, muffin and crayons for each student
Procedures:
1. Introduce the lesson
by explaining that 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 be working
on spotting the mouth move /m/ and we’ll be searching for /m/ in words!”
2. Ask the students: “Have you ever said 'mmmmm'
after you ate something really good? That
is the same mouth move you make when you read a
word with the /m/ sound in them. Let’s
practice making the /m/ mouth move together. Remember to keep your lips
together. Very good, lets do
it again but this time I want you
to hold the /m/ for a longer time and rub your belly in a circular
motion, like you do when something taste really
good. [Model how you
rub your tummy]. Good job, now we know how to make the /m/ mouth
move.”
3. “Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. ‘On Mondays Michael’s mother Mary mostly mops.’ Now let’s all say it three times together. Say it
again but this time I want you to
s-t-r-e-t-c-h the /m/ at the beginning of the words and rub your belly
whenever you hear the /m/ sound. ‘On
Mmmondays Mmmichael’s mmmother
Mmmary mmmostly mmmops.’ Try it again, and
this time break the /m/ off the words: ‘On /m/ ondays
/m/ ichael’s
/m/ other /m/ ary /m/ ostly /m/ ops.’”
4. Have students take out primary paper and pencil.
“We can use letter m to spell /m/. Let’s try writing it. To
write the letter m you start with your
pencil on the fence, move your
pencil down, hump around, hump around, so that your pencil ends on the
sidewalk. I’d like to see everybody’s
m. After
I put a check mark on it, I’d like for you to do a total of 10 m’s. When you see the letter
m all by itself in a word, that’s your signal to
say /m/.”
5.
“I'm
going to say two words now and listen to see if the /m/ sound is in
either one
of them. ‘Star.’ ‘Moon.’” Slowly repeat both words a few
times. “‘Ssstttaaarrr.’ ‘Mmmooonnn.’
I hear /m/ in moon. Now I’ll let
you try.” Call on students to answer and tell how they
knew:
6. Pass out "m/?"
cards to each student. “Show
me m if you hear /m/ and the question mark if you
don’t.” Give words one at a time: “On, Mondays,
Michael’s, mother, Mary,
mostly, mops”
7. Introduce If You Give A Moose A Muffin by Laura Joffe
Numeroff by giving an engaging booktalk. Read it and then talk
about the story. Read it again,
and have students rub their belly
when they hear words with /m/. Have
students create their own tongue twister with the /m/ sound using
1-2-3-4 poetry on
their primary paper using
invented spelling. The first word in their
tongue twister should be an animal with the /m/ sound.
The second word should be
something (a verb) that that
animal does. The third word will describe
the animal (an adjective) and will actually go at the beginning of the
sentence. The final
word in their tongue twister will
describe how the animals do what they do (another adjective). Each word should contain the /m/ sound at the
beginning. An
example would be: “Moody monkeys munch miserably.” Display sentences around the classroom.
8. For assessment, distribute the picture page and help students
name each picture. Have students color the
pictures whose names have /m/.
References:
Eldredge,
J. L. “Developing Phonemic Awareness Through Stories, Games, and Songs:
Activities to Enhance Rhyme and Alliteration.” Teach Decoding: Why
and How.
2nd ed.
Numeroff, Laura J. If You Give A Moose A Muffin. Scholastic, Inc., 1991. Felicia Bond. 29 pages.
“Buzzy B’s” by Meg Miller.http://www.auburn.edu/%7Emurraba/begin/millermel.html.
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