Reading Lessons by Ruth Lee

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 sound analogy (popcorn popping sound) 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 “Please prepare for the popcorn party with Mr. Pup-Pup!”

• Popcorn (A Frank Asch Bear Book) by Frank Asch (2015)

• Printed pictures of the pole with popcorn and P and Mr. Pup-Pup (printable enlarged version on the right and below)

• Laminated word cards with PULP, PET, CORN, PART, KEEP, TUB (card print-out below)

• Drawing paper and crayons

• Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (URL below).

 

Procedures

1. Say: English is like a secret code. We need to learn what it sounds like before we try to read. The secret code here is called the letters. Today, we are going to learn what sound the letter P makes. Well, it makes the popping sound, /p/. P looks like a pole with a popcorn attached to its head like this (show pictures below): 

2. Let’s pretend to hear the popcorn popping sound coming out of the microwave. /p/ /p/ /p/. [Pantomime popping gesture: make both of your hands like when you’re scratching all ten fingers on the blackboard. And then suddenly stretch them out and quickly come back to the scratching position. Repeat to pantomime popping motion.] Notice what your mouth does. Starting with lips closed, we blow air out as we open them. /p/ /p/ /p/. Notice you don’t feel anything on your vocal cord. There is no buzzing feeling/sound. [Make them compare by touching their neck and say /b/ and /p/] It’s just the air blown out and slightly pushed as the lips are opening. /p/ /p/ /p/.

3. 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 my popping sound. Mmm-o-o-p. Slower: Mmm-o-o-o-p. There it was! I felt my lips touching each other and then the air blow out as opening. /p/ /mop/

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Surprisingly, it happens to be that the day before yesterday was when all the vegetables got together and opened up a contest to see who the best pop star in the world is. Well, our popular friend Mr. Pup-Pup obviously received an honor to be the first place, and as a gift for the audience, he’s throwing a popcorn party for all who’s living in the Vegecity. We have gotten invited, and it’s going to start in a few hours. Here’s our tickler: “Please prepare for the popcorn party with Mr. Pup-Pup!” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. “Phhlease phrepare for the phhopcorn phhparty with Mr. Phhup-Phhup.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/p/ lease /p/ repare for the /p/ opcorn /p/ arty with Mr. /p/ up /p/ up.”

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a pole with a popcorn attached [because it is not common thus hard for them to imagine what I am saying, I’ll show them the evolving printed out pictures below: Figure 1]. Let’s write the uppercase letter P first. Start at the rooftop. Go down, pick up, and around 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. Now, this time lowercase letter p. Start at the fence, go straight down into the ditch, come up and put his chin on the side walk. I want to see everybody's p again. After I put a smile 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 pocket or monkey? ballet or pool? keep or give? lift or drop? Piano or Drum? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Make a popping sound /p/ /p/ /p/ if you hear /p/. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. 

7. Say: “Let's read a story together. This book is about popcorn. [Take the book out and show them the book as getting attention…] Uh-oh, this can’t happen! Everybody who got invited brought a bowl or a bag full of popcorn to the party. What are they going to do with all that popcorns? I will read this story for you and whenever you hear /p/, I would like you to make popping gestures with your hands. For some of you, I might ask to even try to read the familiar word for the class. [Read the story. When come to the word popcorn, make them raise their hand and read it aloud.] After finished reading story, make them to draw what they want to bring to the party like popcorns, pancakes and cake-pops. Then have each student write the name of the thing they’re taking with invented spelling. Display their work.

8. Show PULP and model how to decide if it is pulp or gulp: The P sounds like popcorns popping, /p/, so this word is p-u-l-p. pulp. You try some: PET: pet or met? CORN: thorn or corn? PART: fart or part? KEEP: keen or keep? TUB: tub or hub?

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

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Reference

• Murray, Bruce (2012). Making sight words: Teaching word recognition from phoneme awareness to fluency. Ronkonkoma NY: Linus. p. 110, 294.

• Related design: Bruce Murray, Brush Your Teeth with F 

         https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/emergent-literacy

• Asch, F. (2015). Popcorn. New York: Aladdin.

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Assessment Worksheet

• https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-p_WFMWZ.pdf?up=1466611200