Pop Along With P

Emma Webb

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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 (popping of 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.

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Materials:

Primary paper and pencil; paper with /p/ tongue tickler: “Puppy Princess Piper Pops Popcorn”; markers; Popping Popcorn with Princess Piper (Emma Webb 2020); word cards with PUP, PORK, PICK, PUG, PACE, and PEG; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (URL below).

 

Procedures:

1. 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 person, and /p/ sounds like popping popcorn.

2. Let's make popcorn noises, /p/, /p/, /p/. [Pantomime popcorn popping] Notice where your lips are? (Touching lips together). When we say /p/, we act like we are spitting, just without the spit itself.

3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word spot. I'm going to stretch spot out in super slow motion and listen for my popcorn. Sss-P-Oooo-T. Slower: Ssssss-P-Oooooo-T. There it was! I felt my lips touching! Popcorn /p/ is in spot.

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on paper]. Piper is a puppy princess. Piper is hungry and wants a snack. Popcorn is her favorite. Put the popcorn in the microwave to pop it! Here’s our tickler: "Puppy Princess Piper Pops Popcorn." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "Ppp-uppy PPPrincess PPPiper PPPops PPPopcorn." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/p/ uppy /p/ rincess /p/ iper /p/ ops /p/ opcorn.

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a person. Let's write the lowercase letter p. Start at the fence. Draw a straight line down to the ditch. Then draw a circle touching the right side of the line. Make sure the circle touches both the fence and the sidewalks. I want to see everybody's p. 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 work or penny? finger or pig? Red or pink? Lift or drop? Stop or sore? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Pop if you hear /p/: The, funny, purple, pug, plopped, by, the, pink, pony.

7. Say: "Let's look at short book. This book tells us about a funny puppy who is always hungry!" Read the book, drawing out /p/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /p/. Ask them to come up with names or food that has the letter P. Then have each student write their words with invented spelling and draw a picture of their food. Display their work.

8. Show PUP and model how to decide if it is pup or cup: The P tells me to pop, /p/, so this word is ppp-up, pup. You try some: PORK: pork or fork? PICK: pick or nick? PUG: pug or mug? PACE: pace or race? PEG: peg or leg?

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.

 

References:

Princesses Popping Popcorn:

https://snh0014.wixsite.com/lessonplanwebsite/emergent-literacy

 

Assessment Worksheet:

https://twistynoodle.com/circle-the-words-that-start-with-the-letter-p-worksheet/

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Auburn University Developments

​http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/developments/

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