Emergent Literacy Design: P is for Popcorn!
Rationale: The purpose of this lesson will be to help young readers identify the phoneme /p/, represented by P. Students will learn the sound analogy of popcorn popping for /p/ as well as the letter symbol P. They will practice recognizing the sound /p/ in words from a list and then they will practice their awareness of the phoneme /p/ by identifying pictures of items that begin with the letter P.
Materials: book If You Give a Pig a Pancake; List of p words PAT, POP, POT, PICK, and PARK; pencil; “Beginning Sounds” worksheet for letter P with writing practice and identifying pictures with /p/; Some extra primary paper might be good to have on hand in case student needs more practice writing the letters P than the space provided on the worksheet.
Procedures:
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Introduce the letter P by showing student a picture of the upper and lowercase (Pp) and explain that it is the next letter in the alphabet that they will learn so that they can understand the secret code of letters. Explain how they will learn to listen for the sound that this letter makes in our mouths, just like with the rest of the letters they have learned (give the example of /m/: lips together, tongue relaxed, hum with your voice through your nose).
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Model how to pronounce the phoneme /p/ and then explain to the student how they can make the sound with their mouth- “start with your lips together and your teeth open behind them. When you pucker your lips a little bit and then open them, notice the popping sound your mouth makes. This is the /p/ sound that the letter P makes.
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Model how to listen for the sound /p/ in a word. “Let me show you how we can hear the sound /p/ in the word sleep. I can say it super slowly so that we can hear all of the sounds and listen for our /p/. ssss-lll—ee-ee-p. My lips go together, and my mouth makes the popping noise at the end of sleep, so I know that /p/ is in sleep.
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Listen to this story and then try to say the sentence after me: My friend Pam was very hungry the other night, but she did not know what she should eat for dinner. She had some chicken that she could cook or a potato that she thought might be yummy. After thinking about it for a while, Pam decided that she was not in the mood for chicken, so ‘Pam put the potato in the pot’. There’s our tongue tickler, can you say it with me? ‘Pam put the potato in the pot’. Great! Now you say it on your own and break off the popping /p/ sound: ‘/p/-am /p/-ut the /p/-otato in the /p/-ot’.
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Have students practice writing the letter P for /p/ at the top of the worksheet and on extra primary paper if needed. To write the lowercase p, we start our line at the fence and bring it all the way down to the bottom of the ditch. Then we make a backwards c from the fence to the sidewalk. Show me how you write the letter p.
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Ask students: do you hear our popping /p/ in tap or tag? In leap or leaf? In up or down? In ship or boat? How can you tell which words have our letter p in them?
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Pull out list of P words. Point to PAT and model for students how we can tell that it is pat and not rat. “I see my letter p which tells me to make the popping sound with my lips, so this word is pat”. Have the student try with other words on list: POP: pop or mop? POT: lot or pot? PICK: tick or pick? PARK: park or dark?
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Book Talk: Have you ever known anyone who had a pig for a pet? Do you think they feed them people food like pancakes? In this story we will see what kind of crazy things happen when pigs eat yummy pancakes. Read If You Give a Pig a Pancake with student, emphasizing the /p/ sound
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Assessment: Have students try the worksheet on their own. They color in the pictures of the words that start with the popping p or the /p/ sound.
Reference:
Worksheet-https://free4classrooms.com/free-beginning-sounds-worksheet-letter-p/
If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Give-Pig-Pancake/dp/0060266864
Phonetic /p/ sound tutorial- Peter Galante https://www.redcatreading.com/phonics-letter-p-sound/
