Rationale:  This lesson will help students to identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy “popcorn popping”. Students will also practice learning to find /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 

• Pencil and Crayons

• Word cards with Pot, Pat, Pop, Plum, Shell, and Took

• Assessment worksheet 

• Dr. Suess’s Hop on Pop

 

Procedures:
1. Our written language is a super-secret code. Our mouths move in different ways when we say words and letters, which makes the code super tricky to crack. Today, we are going to learn the /p/ sound. The letter P makes the /p/ sound. P looks like a spoon.

 

2. When we make popcorn it pops and makes the noise /p/, /p/, /p/, try putting your hands up close your fists. When we say /p/ open and close your fists  with the p. The tongue stays in place but the lips are together and air gets blown out. 

 

3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word pet. I'm going to stretch pet out in super slow motion and I want you to listen for the popcorn popping. p-e-e-t. Slower: pp-e-e-e-tt. There it was! I felt my lips close together and blow air out. Popping /p/ is in pet. 

 

4. Let's try a tongue tickler (on the chart) Pete the penguin invited some friends over for a movie night. One of his friends, Polly Pig, asked Pete if he could make plenty of popcorn for the movie. Here’s our tickler: “Pete the penguin pops perfect popcorn for Polly Pig” ​​ Everybody say it with me three times together. Now say it again, but this time stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "Ppppete the pppenguin pppopped ppperfect pppopcorn for Pppolly Pppig." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “ /p/ete the /p/ enguin  /p/opped /p/erfect /p/opcorn for /p/olly /p/ig” 

 

5. Have students take out primary paper and pencil). We use letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a big spoon and lowercase P looks like a little spoon. Let’s write the lowercase letter P. Draw a straight line from the fence to the ditch. For the half circle on the lowercase letter attach it from the fence to the sidewalk. For uppercase P, draw a line from the rooftop all the way down to the sidewalk and add a half circle onto the line from the rooftop to the fence. 

When you are finished I am going to come around and put a star. Once I’ve done that, I want you to make nine more P 's just like it.

 

 6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in house or pencil? Lemon or princess? Pink or green? Police or nurse?  Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Pop like popcorn if you hear the /p/: pillow, color, script, peanuts, pack, sting, peddles

7. Say: “Let’s look at a book called, Lets look at this book by Dr. Seuss that has really cool illustrations and a character names Pup! Hop on Pop”. Read the book (pages 1-5) aloud with the class, drawing out /p/. Ask the class if they can think of other words that begin or use /p/. Have them make up a super silly names for Pup’s friends! Then have each student write out their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their creature. Be sure to display their work.

 

8. Show PAN and model how you figured out if it was pan or can: The /p/ tells me that popcorn is popping ( show hand signal for this), so the p is in pppan, pan. You try some: PAT: pat or bat? PET: pet or set? SACK: sack or pack?PIE: pie or tie? 

 

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color words that start with the letter t.

 

References:

• Assessment Worksheet: https://free4classrooms.com/free-beginning-sounds-worksheet-letter-p/

• Seuss, Dr. (1963). Hop on Pop. New York: Beginner Books

• Hannah Peralo, Popcorn Pops with P: https://hperalo18.wixsite.com/lessonplandesignctrd/emergent-literacy