Pop Your P's Like Popcorn




Emergent Literacy

Kaylyn Kirsch




In order for children to become good readers, they must have a strong foundation in letter recognition and phonemic awareness. The goal of this lesson is to help children become familiar with the phoneme /p/ which is represented by the letter P. Students will learn tp identify /p/ in spoken words through a meaningful representation (popping popcorn) and will also learn to write the letter symbol for P.



-picture of a pig
-picture of popcorn

-printer paper cut into strips (one strip for each student)

-chart with "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"

-primary paper
-smiley stickers
-If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff
-Flash cards (PINK, PAN, POT, PAIN, FAT, PIG)

-P worksheet with pictures for students to color



1. To begin the lesson, explain to the students that different letters make different sounds just like animals and our mouths move in different ways for each letter/sound.

"Today we will be working on the letter P." (hold up a picture of a pig) "Can anyone tell me what this is?" Great job! And what sound does a pig make? That's right, a pig says 'oink'! Well, just like different animals make different sounds, different letters in our alphabet also make different sounds and our mouths move in different ways for each sound."

2. Ask the students, "Have you ever heard popcorn popping in the microwave? What did it sound like? Let's try to make that same sound with our mouths. Great job! That is the same sound that the letter P makes, /p/. The same sound is heard at the beginning of the word park. Watch my mouth as I say the word park and stretch out the /p/ at the beginning. P-p-p-p-park. Did you hear the popping sound at the beginning? To make the /p/ sound, you press your lips and push a burst of air through your lips. Let's try that together several times.

3. Use strips of printer paper to have the students do an individual assessment to check and make sure that they are forming the right sound.

"There is a way we can check and make sure we are forming the right sound with our mouths. Watch what happens to this strip of paper as I hold it in front of my mouth as I am making the /p/ sound. What happened to the paper? That's right! As I formed the /p/ sound, the paper moved as the air was pressed through my lips." (pass strips of paper to the class) "Now I want you to try on your own. Did the paper move?"

4. Show the students how they can stretch out words to find the appropriate sound.

"Let me show you how to find the /p/ in the word hop. I am going to stretch out hop in slow motion so that I can hear each individual sound and find my "popping popcorn" sound. Hhh-o-o-op. Slower: Hhhh-o-o-o-ppp. There it was! I hear my "popping popcorn" sound at the end of the word hop.

5. Have the students say a tongue twister (on chart) as a class to obtain more practice with the new sound.

"Let's try this fun tongue twister to practice our /p/ sound. 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers' Let's all say it together three times. Now let's try it again and stretch out the /p/ sound in the words. "Pppeter Pppippper pppicked a pppeck of pppickled pppepppers." Now let's try it one more time and break of the /p/ sound in the words. "/p/ eter /p/ I /p/ er /p/ icked a /p/ eck of /p/ ickled
/p/ e /p/ ers" Good job!

6. Have the students practice forming the lowercase letter p.

"Now take out your primary paper and a pencil and we are going to practice writing the lowercase letter p. Watch me do it first and then we will try it together. I am going to start at the fence and make a straight line down into the ditch. Then I am going to pick up my pencil and put it back where I started. Now I am going draw a half circle from the fence and connect the bottom to the stick so that his chin is resting on the sidewalk. Now you try and I am going to walk around and help you. Once I put a sticker on your paper I want you to draw 10 more p's just like that." (walk around and guide students who are having trouble and place smiley stickers on papers that are complete.)

7. In order to assess student understanding, give them words and ask which word has the /p/ sound.

"Now let's play a game. I want everyone to crouch down on the floor next to your desk. I am going to say some words and I want you to pop up like popcorn and make the /p/ sound when you hear it. Puddle, rock, pop, dot, sad, happy, open, close, blue, purple, lamp, lid, sit, lip, pig, cow, pink, jump, mat. (words can be said in any order) Very Good!"

8. Read If You Give a Pig a Pancake.

"Now everyone sit back in your desk. I am going to read a story called If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Now that sounds like a very silly book! What do you think would happen if you gave a pig a pancake? Well we are going to read it and I want you to listen closely and every time you hear the /p/ sound I want you to clap. I will make a list of the word that you think have the /p/ sound in them and we will talk about them after I read the story." After completing the story, talk about each word and stretch out each word to test for the /p/ sound.

9. After the story, have the students practice applying phoneme awareness in phonetic cue reading by reading the first letters of several rhyming words.

"I am going to show you some flash cards with a word on it and I want you to use what you know about the letter p to read the words. (Show PINK and model how to decide if the word is PINK or SINK) The P tells me to pop my popcorn, /p/, so this word is p-ink, pink. Now you try. Is this word PAN: pan or ran? POT: Pot or dot? PAIN: pain or rain? FAT: fat or pat? PIG: big or pig?"



10. For assessment, the students will complete a worksheet that has them trace the letter p and color items that have the /p/ sound in them. The worksheet contains pictures of things that contain the /p/ sound as well as things that do not and the students will have to decide what should be colored and what should not. We will name each picture as a class before they begin so that they are not confused as to what the picture is showing. Call individual students over to read the phonetic cue cards from step #9.



Matthews, Pearson. "Popping Popcorn." http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/adventures/mathewsel.htm


Murray, Bruce. "Brush Your Teeth With F: Emergent Literacy." http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html

Taylor, Bailey. "Popping P's." http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/caravans/taylorel.htm


Assessment Worksheet:


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