Rationale: This lesson will help students identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (popping popcorn). They will practice finding /p/ in words and apply phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: primary paper and pencil; chart with “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;” The Perfect Pumpkin Pie by Denys Cazet; drawing paper and crayons; word cards with PAIL, PAN, TIE, POOL, HOT; worksheet assessment for identifying /p/ words.
Procedures:
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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 /p/. We spell /p/ with letter P. P looks like a line that pops at the top, and /p/ sounds like popping popcorn.
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Let’s pretend like we are popping popcorn, /p/, /p/, /p/. [Pantomime popping popcorn] Notice where your lips are? (Touching lower lop). When we say /p/, our lips come together and pop like popcorn.
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Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word rope. I’m going to stretch rope out in super slow motion and listen for my pop, rrr-ooo-ppp-eee. Slower: rrrr-oo-pppppp-eee. There it was! I felt my lips pop. Popping /p/ is in rope.
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Let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Peter is a little boy. He loves picking fruits and vegetables out of the garden. His favorite food is pickled peppers. He needs to pick enough pecks of peppers for a party! Here’s our tickler: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, an this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. “Pppeter Pppiper pppicked a pppeck of pppickled pppeppers.” Try it again, and this time break if off the word: “/p/eter /p/iper /p/icked a /p/eck of /p/ickled /p/eppers.”
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[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like popcorn is attached to a line. Let’s write the uppercase P. Start at the rooftop. Draw a line from the rooftop to the sidewalk. Then make an o that connects to the line from the rooftop to the fence. I want to see everybody’s p. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
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Say: Now we’re going to write the lowercase letter P. To do that you’re going to start at the fence, go straight down into the ditch, come up and put his chin on the sidewalk. That’s a lowercase p! After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
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Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in pig or dog? Car or plane? Up or down? Pal or friend? Grape or orange? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Say “pop” if you hear /p/. Pickle, bowl, pink, purple, funny, paint, sand, beach, pencil.
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Say: “Let’s read a story together. This book is called The Perfect Pumpkin Pie. It is about Old Man Wilkerson wanting a perfect pumpkin pie. Jack and his grandma have just moved into Old Man Wilkerson’s old house and he tells them that if he does not get a perfect pumpkin pie he will haunt their house.” Let’s read the story to see if he ever gets his perfect pumpkin pie. If you hear the /p/ sound you can “pop” or jump up and down like popcorn does when it pops. Ask children if they can think of other foods that start with /p/. Then have each student draw a picture of the food they thought of. Display their work.
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Show PAIL and model how to decide if it is mail or pail: the P tells me it’s popping, /p/, so this word is pppp-ail, pail. You try some: PAN: pan or tan? TIE: pie or tie? POOL: cool or pool? HOT: hot or pot?
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For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with p. While this is happening, call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #7.
References:
Bruce Murray, Brush Your Teeth with F
https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/emergent-literacy
The Perfect Pumpkin Pie by Denys Cazet
https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Pumpkin-Pie-Denys-Cazet/dp/0689864671
Assessment Worksheet: