Emergent Literacy

Popping Popcorn With P

An Emergent Literacy Design by Spenser Phillips

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 popcorn) and the letter P, practice finding /p/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Materials:

Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Peter popped picky Penny’s pink popcorn”; Kevin Henkes’s "Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse" (Greenwillow Books, 2006); word cards with POT, PIT, SACK, PLUG, PICK, and PACE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (URL below).

Procedures:

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. The loop in the P looks like popcorn kernel, and it /p/ sounds like popcorn popping.

Let’s pretend to pop popcorn, /p/, /p/, /p/. [Pantomime popping popcorn] Notice where your lips are? (pressed together) Show me where your lips are when you say /p/. When we say /p/ we push our lips together and then let air pop out like popcorn.

Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word bumpy. I’m going to stretch bumpy out in super slow motion and listen for my popping popcorn. Bbb-u-u-u-mmm-mpy. Slower: Bbb-u-u-u-mmm-ppp-y. There it is! I felt my lips come together and then let air pop out. I can feel the popcorn /p/ in bumpy.

Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. “Peter popped picky Penny’s pink popcorn.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. “Pppeter pppopped pppicky Pppenny’s pppink pppopcorn.” Try it again, and this time break off the word; “/p/eter /p/opped /p/icky /p/enny’s /p/ink /p/opcorn.”

[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. The loop in capital P looks like a popcorn kernel. Let’s write the lowercase letter p. Start at the fence, go straight down into the ditch, comeup and put his chin on the sidewalk. Awesome! I want to see everybody’s lowercase p. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

Now we are going to play a little game. I am going to ask you if you hear our popping /p/ in certain words and then I will call on students to tell me which words have /p/ in them and how they knew. Do you hear /p/ in play or rest? Wet or drip? Open or close? Glass or cup? Purple or blue? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Pop your popcorn if you hear /p/: wash, plum, pillow, flower, pill, pale, love, hand, bag, and, plate.

Say: “Now we’re going to read “Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse” by Kevin Henkes.” Booktalk: Lilly loves school and is so excited for show and tell. She decides to bring her new plastic purple purse! But Lilly’s teacher Mr. Slinger takes away her new purple plastic purse! Oh no! What is Lilly going to do?! We will have to read to find out!” Ask the students to make a list of all the words they hear with /p/ in it. Ask the students what Lilly owned that started with a P? Also, ask what some other words were that had P in them. Have students raise their hands to answer and make sure all students participate.

Show POT and model how to decide if it is pot or tot: The P tells me to pop my popcorn, /p/, so this word is ppp-ot, pot. You try some: PIT: pit or sit? SACK: pack or sack? PLUG: plug or slug? PICK: tick or pick? PACE: pace or mace?

For assessment, distribute the work sheet to each student. Students are to identify the pictures that begin with P and circle each picture. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

References:

Clark, Jessica. “Dripping with P” https://sites.google.com/site/mrsclarkslessondesigns/home/emergent-literacy-design-plopping-with-p

Faison, Mary Cameron. ”Plopping the Peanut in the Pan” http://marycameronf.wix.com/msfaisonsreadingtips#!plop-the-peanut-in-the-pan/coos

Kenkes, Kevin. "Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse." Greenwillow Books. 2006.

Assessment worksheet: http://www.education.com/files/229801_229900/229848/alphabet-phonics-p.pdf

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