Maggie's Marbles

Emergent Literacy

Megan Lee

Rationale:  In order for children to learn how to read, it is very important for them to have good letter recognition skills and know the sounds that each letter makes. The letter-sound correspondence is the main component of reading which is why it is vital for teachers to stress letters and their sounds. In this lesson, I will be teaching the letter m. We will discuss the letter and the sound it makes. We will also practice writing the letter M, both upper and lower cases. They should be able to identify the letter/sound and words that can be associated with m.

Materials:

Primary Paper

Pencils

Blank Drawing Paper

Dry Erase board for teacher to demonstrate on

Worksheet with M correspondences

If You Give a Moose a Muffin: Laura Numeroff

Procedure(s):

1.       "We have learned so many letters so far. If you put letters together, you can make words. Letters are very important because without them we would not be able to read. Today I will introduce a new letter to you."

2.       We will review all of the letters they have learned so far. (This should include letters A-L). During this time, I will ask different students to give the name of the letter and what sound it makes, as I draw the letter on the dry erase board.

3.       "Today I want to introduce to you the letter M. Does anyone know what sound it makes? Mmmmm. That is the sound you make when your mom is making some muffins in the kitchen and they smell really good. Put your lips together and push the mmmm sound through. Let's do it together and rub your tummy as you do the mmm sound. I'm going to give you a sentence that has a lot of M sounds in it and then I want you to repeat it together. When you hear the mmmm sound I want you to rub your tummy.  Maggie and Molly mopped up the marbles." We would go through the sentence several times.

4.       We will practice writing both upper and lower cases M. "Now get out your primary paper and pencil. We are going to learn how to write the letter, beginning with lower case.  Start at the fence and go straight down to the dirt, then go back up that straight line and near the top of your line go out and touch the fence and make a little hill. Go down to the dirt and make another little hill, just like you did before." I will be modeling this for the students on the board so they can follow along if they are having trouble. I will then ask them to draw the letter m out ten times. This will give me time to assess as they are writing their letter m. "Great job everyone! Now we are going to learn how to write an uppercase M.  We start at the sky and draw a straight line all the way to the dirt. Now we will draw a line from the sky that is diagonal to the dirt. Then we make another diagonal line from the dirt to the sky in the other direction. We connect that line to the dirt. Now you have drawn your capital M! (I will be modeling and then assign to them ten upper case M.)  Now that we know what an m looks like I want you to draw something that starts with the mmm sound. Get out your blank paper and draw something that begins with M.

5.       Seeing as how the students are just getting familiar with their letters it will be too hard for them to read very much. At this time, I will read to them If You Give a Moose a Muffin.

6.       I will now hand out the worksheet that has some M related pictures and some others. I will give the directions: "Look at your sheet. Think to yourself if that picture begins with the sound mmm. If it does, then you may color it. If it does not, then you may leave it blank."

Reference: Cassie Simpson, The B Beat.

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/simpsonel.html