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 (popping a bubble) and the letter symbol P, practice finding /p/ in words, and applying phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials:
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Primary paper and pencil
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Chart with “Piper the Playful Pig Popped a Plump Pink bubble.”
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Jean Marzollo’s Papa Papa
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Phonetic Cue Reading Cards: pig, pen, peach, pizza, plane
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Assessment worksheet identifying words with /p/ (URL below).
Procedures:
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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 pig’s head, and /p/ sounds like bubble gum popping.
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Say: Everyone pretend to chew bubble gum. Let’s act like we are blowing a bubble. What does it sound like when someone blows and pops a bubble? Right, /p/, /p/, /p/. When we make the /p/ sound, we put our lips together and force air out between our top and bottom lip.
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Say: Now I am going to show you how to find the /p/ sound in the word flop. Listen as I stretch out each sound to look for the air between my lips. /F/ /l/ /o/ /p/. There it is! I felt the air pop between my lips, /p/, at the end of the word flop.
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Say: Let’s try a tongue twister (written on chart). Piper is a hyper pig who loves to play. One day she was given a huge piece of bubble gum, and she got into a bubble gum blowing contest with her best friend. She blew a bubble so big that it popped right on her face! “Piper the Playful Pig Popped a Plump Pink bubble.” Everyone say it three times together. Now, let’s say it again, and this time stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. “Pppiper the ppplayful pppig pppopped a ppplump pppink bubble.” Say it again, and this time break it off the word. “/p/iper the /p/layful /p/ig /p/opped a /p/lump /p/ink bubble.”
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[Have students take out a pencil and primary paper.] Say: We use the letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a pig’s head. Let’s write capital P first. Start at the rooftop, draw a line past the fence, and all the way to the sidewalk. Then go back up to the rooftop and make a half circle, bring the curved line down to the fence. Now, we will write lowercase p. We write lowercase p the same as we write uppercase P, but instead of starting at the rooftop, we start at the fence and carry the straight line past the ground. The half circle goes from the fence to the ground. I want you to practice writing big P and little p five more times.
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Say: I will give you two words, and I want you to tell me in which word you hear /p/. You will know if P is in the word if you can feel the air coming out between your lips and hear the popping sound. Do you hear /p/ in pig or cow? Marker or pen? Peach or apple? Pizza or burger? Car or plane?
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Say: Now let’s read a book. [Read aloud Papa Papa by Jean Marzollo.] Book talk: A baby penguin is left alone with papa penguin. Even though the baby penguin’s mom is not around, he is still cared for and loved by his papa. What will happen to all of the other animals when they are left with their papa’s? We will have to read to find out.
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For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will draw a line from the letter P to the pictures that start with the /p/ sound. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step 6.
References:
Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/p-begins1.htm
Diamond, Allison. Playing with the Letter P. http://diamondgirl567.wixsite.com/mysite/emergentliteracy
Marzollo, Jean. Papa Papa. Harper Growing Tree, 2000.
Wilson, Meg. Z is for Zigby the Zebra. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/wilsonmel.htm
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