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Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning an impactful representation (pickling peppers) and the letter symbol 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 Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with PIG, PACK, MINE, PORK, and POKE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/p-begins2.htm).

 

Procedures: 

 

1. Say: The English language is sometimes written in a secret code. The important task we are training you for is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves when we say words. Today, we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /p/. We spell /p/ with letter P. P looks like a tongue sticking out of a mouth, and /p/ sounds like what you do when you spit out a spicy pepper.

 

2. Let's pretend to gracefully spit out a pepper, /p/, /p/, /p/. [Pantomime the action of spitting out a pepper into a napkin] Notice the way your lips touch when you say /p/? (Touching pursed lips). When we say /p/, we push our lips together and then push out air between our top lip and lower lip.

 

3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word pizza. I'm going to stretch left out in super slow motion and listen for my push of air, that spit out sound. Ppp-E-zz-ah. Slower: Pppp-EEE-zzz-ahh. There it was! I felt my lips come together and then push out air between them. Napkin needed, pepper catcher /p/ is in pizza.

 

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Everyone say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "Pppeter Pppiper pppicked a pppeck of pppickled pppeppers." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/p/ eter /p/ iper /p/ icked a /p/ eck of /p/ ickled /p/ eppers.

 

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a sideways tongue sticking out of a mouth (:P). Let's write the lowercase letter p. I want you to start at the fence, and drop all the way down below the sidewalk. Then bring your pencil back up almost to the fence, and curve back around to the sidewalk (almost like a backwards c). I want to see everybody's p. After I come around and put a silly face sticker on your paper, I want you to practice making the lowercase letter p nine more times. 

 

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in work or play? mouth or lip? up or down? drop or lift? Purple or lavender? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Hold up your hand (napkin) to your mouth if you hear /p/: The, polite, princess, played, leap, frog, with, a, pink, cat.

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7.  Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book.  Dr. Seuss tells us of multiple P named people doing some very unusual things. Can you guess?"  Read page 36, drawing out /p/.  Ask children if they can think of other words with /p/.  Ask them to make up a funny name starting with P. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their person or animal. Display their work.

 

8. Show PIG and model how to decide if it is pig or fig: The P tells me to spit out the pepper /p/, so this word is pppp-ig, pig. You try some: PORK: fork or pork? PILL: mill or pill? PETE: pete or meet? PART: cart or part? POKE: poke or joke?

 

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with P. Call students individually to your desk to read the phonetic cue words from step eight (8).

 

References:

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Additional Reference: Lessons Index

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/vistas/

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Emergent Learning: Kristin Peacock, Popping Popcorn with Pat the Pig

https://kristinp08.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/emergent-literacy

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Book: Dr. Seuss. ABC (Random House: 1963)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlV_ddc_KpU (16:05-17:03)

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Book: Murray, B. Making Sight Words. (Linus Books: 2012)

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Assessment Worksheet:

https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/p-begins2.htm

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Tongue Twister:

http://www.theenglishalley.com/tonguetwisters/peterpiper.html​