Reading Help with Ms.Allison

                                                            Playing with the Letter P

         Rationale: This lesson will help the children identify the letter /p/, the phoneme represented by P.
 Students will learn to recognize the /p/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful
representation (playing games) and the letter symbol P, practice finding /p/ in words, and applying phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters
         Materials: 

                         -Primary paper and pencil

                         -Chart with "Peter’s pet played Pat’s puzzle"

                         -Drawing paper and crayons

                         -Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House)

                         -Word cards with PAN, GET, PIZZA, MEET, PORK, and SNAKE

                         -Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (URL below)
        Procedures :

                   1. Tell them: Our written language is a code. This tricky part is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves we make as we speak the words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /p/.  We spell the letter /p/ with the letter P. P looks like a stick with another bent stick attached to it, and /p/ sounds like the air
                   2. Let's pretend to attach the sticks, /p/, /p/, /p/. [attached the sticks] Notice where your top lip is? (Touching lower lip). When we say /p/, we put air out between top lip and lower lip
                   3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word sleep. I'm going to stretch sleep out in super slow motion and listen for the air between my lips. Sl-e-e-p. Slower: Sl-e-e-p There it is! I felt the air from my lips by blowing air. I can feel the air /p/ in sleep
                   4. Let's try a tongue twister [on the chart]. “Peter’s pet played Pat’s puzzle." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "PPPPeter’s pppet ppplayed PPPat’s pppuzzle." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/p/ eter's /p/et /p/ layed /p/ at’s /p/uzzle.h
                   5. [Have students take out the primary paper and pencils]. We use the letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a long stick with a short bent stick attached to it. Let's write the lowercase letter p first. Start just next to the fence. Start to make a long stick past the ground, then make a half circle.  I want to see everybody's p. After I put a check or smile on it, I want you to make six more just like it.  
                   6. Call on the students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in pork or bat? pizza or ham? pen or lift? paper or hamper? play or stay? Tell them: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Use the air through your teeth if you hear /p/: The, pets, played, with, the, games, from, Pete’s, shelf.  
                  7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book.  Dr. Seuss told us about a funny creature whose name starts with P.  Can you guess?"  Read page 26, drawing out /p/.  Ask children if they can think of other words with /p/.  Ask them to say something like Police in a pail . Then have each student write their sentence with invented spelling and draw a picture of their sentence. Display their work.h
                  8. Show PAN and model how to decide if it is pan or fan: The P tells me to put air through my teeth, /p/, so this word is ppp-an, pan.  You try some: PET: pet or fed? PETE: bed or pete? PUZZLE: puzzle or muzzle? PORK: fork or pork? PACK: pack or back?
                   9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet.  Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with P. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

Reference: Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1990). Acquiring the alphabetic principle: A case for teaching recognition of phoneme identity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 810-816.
Assessment worksheet:  http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/p-begins2.htm