Rationale:

This lesson will help children identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (puff out hands like a peacock) and the letter symbol P, 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 peacock puffed up with pride”

• Plain paper

• Crayons/markers

• Thick market to make letter P

• Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963)

• word cards with PEN, PET, PIG, PIE, PORK, PASS, PINK

• assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (URL below)

Procedures:

1. Say: “Sometimes words can be a little tricky to figure out what sound they make because there are so many great letters in the alphabet. A great way to figure out those sounds is to look at how people’s mouths move when saying that sound. Today we are going to learn how the mouth moves for the letter P. Watch how my lips come together and open up as I puff out air to say the sound for P, /p/. The letter P is used all the time; for our favorite foods: popcorn and popsicles, our favorite colors: pink and purple, or our favorite animals: pigs, peacocks, or penguins.

2. Say: Now lets all try closing our mouths and opening them up to puff out the sound /p/. Make sure to look at our neighbors mouths as we are making this sound.

3. Say: Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word mop. I'm going to stretch mop out in super slow motion and listen for the puff of air. mmm-o-p. Slower: mmm-o-o-p There it was! I felt my lips touch and puff air out. I can feel the puff /p/ in mop.

4. Say: Let’s say a tongue twister (on chart): raise your hand if you have ever seen a peacock. Well if you have you know that these animals are pretty. Peacocks know that they are pretty so they puff out their feather to show everyone how beautiful they are. Let’s say "Peter peacock puffed up with pride." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, emphasize the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "Pppeter pppeacock pppuffed up with pppride." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/p/eter /p/eacock /p/uffed up with /p/ride.”

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. I would like everyone to write a capital letter P. We will begin at the sidewalk and draw a line straight up to the rooftop and around to the fence. I will walk around to see everybody's P. After I put a stamp on your paper, I want you to make nine more just like it. Now I would like you to write the lowercase letter p. Start at the fence, go straight down into the ditch, then start at the fence curving down to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody's p. After I put a stamp on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in pan or tan? pet or bet? door or poor? late or plate? top or not? cracker or chip? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Puff the peacock if you hear /p/: A, pig, played, in, the, pin.

7. Say: "Let's take a look at an alphabet book. This book is by Dr. Seuss and tells us about a animals who want to change the color of their pajamas!" Read the page, drawing out /p/. Can you think of any other words with /p/. Now let’s create our own crazy names using the letter P for our pet pandas, peacocks, puppies, penguins, or piggy’s! Once you have thought of your name for your pet, draw it out!

      [Students should use invented spelling for this] Display their work.

  8. Show POT and model how to decide if it is pot or dot: The P tells me to puff like a peacock, /p/, so this word is p-ot, pot. You try some: POOR:        more or poor? Please: please or knees? PAT: mat or pat? PLAY: play or stay? PAN: pan or fan? 

  9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with P. Call students              individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

 

References:

Sarah Query, Close your mouth for M

https://sarahquery.wixsite.com/lessondesign/emergent-literacy-design

​

Ms. Shepherd, Popping Popcorn with P

https://aes0050.wixsite.com/msshepherd/emergent-literacy

​

Ash Rogers, Pop with P

https://sites.google.com/view/ashrogerslessondesigns/emergent-literacy?authuser=0

 

Assessment worksheet:

http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/p-begins2.htm

​

​