Emergent Literacy Design:
Pop the Popcorn with P
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 popcorn sound), and the letter symbol P, practice finding /p/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials:
• Primary paper and pencil
• Chart with “Pam’s popcorn popped passed Patty”
• Drawing paper and Crayons
• Word cards with PAN, PET, PLAY, STOP, POINT, POKE, and FORK
• Popcorn (A Frank Asch Bear Book) by Frank Asch (2015)
• Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/
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, and /p/ sounds like popping popcorn.
2. Let’s pretend to pop some popcorn, /p/, /p/, /p/. [Pantomime popping motion]. Notice where top lips are? (touching lower lip). When we say /p/, we bring both lips together, and let air explode out of our mouths.
3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word super. I am going to stretch super out in very slow motion and listen for the popping. Ss-u-u-p-er. Slower: Sss-u-u-u-ppp-er. There it was! We felt our lips touch and air come out. Popping /p/ is in super.
4. Let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Pam’s is making popcorn. Her popcorn popped way passed her friend. Pam’s friend is Patty. Here’s out tickler: “Pam’s popcorn popped passed Patty.” Everyone say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. “Pppam’s pppopcornpppopped pppassed Pppatty.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/p/ am’s /p/ opcorn /p/ opped /p/ assed /p/ atty.”
5. [Have the student take out primary paper and pencil]. We use the letter P to spell /p/. Caplital P looks like an upside-down lower-case b. Let’s write the lowercase letter p. Begin drawing with a straight line at the middle line. Start to make a circle at the top of the straight line and make the circle and line touch only on the middle line. I want to see everyone’s p. After I put a sticker on it, I want you to make ten more just like it.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in see or paw? Pan or cup? Pinky or toe? pencil or marker? Pack or stack? Please or thank? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Do a popping motion if you hear /p/: Sally, sold, peanuts, passed, the, seashore, promptly, by, the, purple, popsicles.
7. Say: “Let's read a story together. This book is about popcorn. [Take the book out and show them the book as getting their full attention…] 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 try to read the words familiar to you for your classmates. [Read the story. When come to the word popcorn, make them raise their hand, do the popping gesture and then read it aloud.] After finished reading story, make them to draw what they want to bring to the party like popcorns, pom-poms, popsicles, pancakes, pickles and pop-tarts. Then have each student write the name of the thing they’re taking with invented spelling. Display their work on the board.
8. Show PET and model how to decide if it is pet or met. The P tells me to pop, so this word is ppp-et,pet. You try some: PAN: pan or man? PLAY: play or lay? STOP: stop or pop? POKE: poke or yoke? FORK: pork or fork?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will color the pictures that begin with P. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
Reference:
• Asch, F. (2015). Popcorn. New York: Aladdin.
• Related design: Bruce Murray, Brush Your Teeth with F https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/emergent-literacy
Assessment worksheet:
• https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-p_WFMWZ.pdf?up=1466611200