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Rationale

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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 with a gesture (popping popcorn) 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 “Piper the Pretty Princess Popped Perfect Popcorn”

Word cards with pot, sail, pan, mat, pork, and clay

The book “Pip and His Pals at the Pond’ by Kathryn Stubblefield

Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/

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Procedure

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Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for—and how our mouth moves when we say words. Today we are going to work on recognizing how our mouth moves when we say /p/.

Ask students “Has anyone heard popcorn being popped before? What does that sound like?” Yes, it sounds like /p/. [pop fingers open for /p/] In order to say /p/ we put our lips together and blow a puff of air through our lips. Watch how my mouth moves as I say /p/. Now let’s “pop some popcorn together” [use hand gesture throughout this sentence when /p/ is used]. Ready, /p/ /p/ /p/.

Now that we know what sound /p/ makes and how our mouth moves, I am going to show you how to find /p/ in a word. Listen as I stretch the word out slowly and tell me where you hear the popcorn pop. Our word is top, ttt-ooo-ppp. Can you hear the popping sound? Lets listen one more time, ttt-ooo-ppp. Yes, we can hear the /p/ at the end when  our puff of air goes through our lips.

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Say “let’s try a tongue tickler!” “Piper the pretty princess popped perfect popcorn.” Princess Piper loves popcorn. One day she gets very hungry and decides to have a snack, so of course, she wanted to make popcorn. Piper the pretty princess popped perfect popcorn. Now lets’ say our tongue tickler together three times. Alright, we will say it again but this time we are going to stretch the /p/ sound so we can hear it.  “PPPippper the pppretty ppprincess ppppppopppppped ppperfect pppopppcorn.”  One more time, but this time we will separate the /p/ from the rest of the word. “/P/iper the /p/retty /p/rincess /p/o/pp/ed /p/erfect /p/o/p/corn

[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/.   In order to draw a capital P we must start we must start at the rooftop and draw a line down to the sidewalk. Then go back to the rooftop and draw a half circle down to the fence. Now to write a lowercase p, it is very similar.  We start at the fence and bring our line down to the ditch and go back to the fence to make a half circle to the sidewalk. Now let’s practice writing our capital P and lowercase p five times each.

Call on students individually to say which word has the /p/ sound and how they know. Do you hear /p/ in play or stay? pie or cake? start or pause? pen or crayon? pink or blue?

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Say: “Now we are going to read Pip and His Pals at the Pond. This is about Pip the pig. Pip loves to swim with his friends, but one day his normal swimming spot was FULL! How are Pip and his pals going to turn their day around?”

Show POT and model how to decide if it is pot or rot: The P tells me to pop my popcorn, /p/, so this word is ppp-ot, pot. You try some and show me your popping popcorn when you hear /p/: SAIL: pail or sail? PAN: ran or pan? MAT: pat or mat? PORK: fork or pork? CLAY: play or clay?

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For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students should circle any pictures that begin with the /p/ sound.

 

 

References

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Assessment worksheet: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/alphabet-phonics-p/

Decodable Book- "Pip and His Pals at the Pond" by Kathryn Stubblefield

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/geniebooks/teacherbooks/

Harrison, Catherine. Pat Pops Popcorn 

https://catharrison0035.wixsite.com/my-site-2/emergent-literacy

Locklear, Hannah. P is for Piper the Pig

https://hml0013.wixsite.com/literacydesigns/emergent-literacy

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