Rationale: This lesson will help students identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy, practice finding /p/ in words, apply phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters, and by reading decodable books.

​

Materials: An image of a person popping popcorn, individual letterboxes, letter tiles: p, a, t, o, s, c, r, n, and s, coverup critter, primary paper,  pencil, chart with tongue tickler, list of spelling words: pan, pot, pack, plan, pond, pork, pink, and the decodable book, Pip and His Pals at the Pond.

​

Procedures: 

1. Say: Our language can be tricky, but the secret to reading and writing is figuring out what each letter stands for. Today, we are going to be learning the /p/ sound. The letter P makes the /p/ sound. It makes a popping noise like popcorn makes.

2. Say: Let's pretend we are making popcorn. Put your hands up in a fist and then open them like they are popcorn kernels popping. When we make the /p/ sound, we curl our lips and open them while blowing a /p/ noise.

3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word cups. I am going to stretch the word very slowly and you tell me where you where the popcorn popping. ccc-uuu-ppp-sss. Could you hear the popping sound? One more time, ccc-uuu-ppp-sss. Yes! You can hear the /p/ noise when your mouth curls together.

4. Now let's try a tongue tickler (on chart). "Pat pops popcorn in the park." Pat loves to pop popcorn, so one day he has the fabulous idea to start selling popcorn. He thinks that people will buy his popcorn if he goes where there are a lot of people. Therefore, Pat decides to go to the park to pop his popcorn. Here is our tickler, "Pat pops popcorn in the park." Let's say it together three times. Now, let's say it again but stretch out the /p/ sound so we can hear it. "pppat pppoppps pppoppps pppopppcorn in the pppark." This time, we are going to say it with the /p/ sound separated from the word. "/P/at /p/o/p/s /p/o/p/corn in the /p/ark."

5. Give student primary paper and a pencil. Next, use the letter P to spell /p/. Capital P is drawn like this: Go down, pick up, and curve around to the fence. Lower case p: Start at the fence, go straight down into the ditch, come up and put his chin on the sidewalk. Now draw 5 capital P's and 5 lowercase p's.

6. Ask students where they hear the /p/ noise in the list of words given: Do you hear /p/ in pack or taco? fast or pen? pause or start? frog or pearl? Say: I am going to hold up some cards with words on them. If you hear the /p/ sound in the word, open and close your fist like popcorn. (hold up cards): Pat, push, hot, play, sit, pet, path.

7. Give book talk for Pip and His Pals at the Pond. Pip the pig 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? We will have to read to find out!

8. For assessment: Have students identify words with /p/ in this read-aloud. Read Pip and His Pals at the Pond to the class and while reading tell students to open and close their fists when they hear the /p/ sound.

8. Show Pet and how to decide if it is pet or let: The P tells us to pop our hands like popcorn, /p/. This word is ppp-et, pet. Now try with these. play: play or stay? pad: pad or mad? pack: pack or rack? pitch: pitch or witch?

9. For a practice activity, distribute the worksheet. Students will color each picture that begins with the letter P. When reviewing the worksheet allow for students to practice the phonetic cue words form step #8.

​

​

​

Reference:

"Polly's Popcorn for P" by Angel Fuentes

https://angelfuentes1721.wixsite.com/mysite-1/polly-s-popcorn-for-p

​

"Six Silly Snakes" by Ellison Brewster

https://ellisonbrewster.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/beginning-reading

​

Practice Assessment Worksheet:

https://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/learning-letters/p.htm

​

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

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

​

​