Emergent Literacy Design
Emily Griffin, CTRD 3000
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /m/, the phoneme represented by M. Students will learn to recognize /m/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (Mmm! Yummy food noise, rubbing stomach) and the letter symbol M, practice finding /m/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /m/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Mister Monkey makes macaroni and cheese in Mimi’s microwave."; drawing paper and crayons; LMNO-peas (Beach Lane Books, 2010); word cards with MAD, PET, MEET, MOVE, TALL, MAKE, and SMART; assessment worksheets identifying pictures and writing words with /m/ (URL below).
Procedures: 1. Say: Our written language is a secret code because it is made up of special symbols. Only people that speak languages like English that use our same alphabet can read and sound out our words. The hardest part is learning what letters stand for—how the mouth moves as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /m/. We spell /m/ with letter M. M looks like a bowl, and /m/ is the sound we make when we eat something delicious.
2. Let's pretend that we just ate some of our favorite foods, /m/, /m/, /m/. [Pantomime rubbing stomach] Did you notice how your lips are touching? When we say /m/, our lips go over our teeth and press together, and we blow air our of our nose.
3. Now I am going to show you how to find /m/ in the word room. I'm going to stretch room out very slowly and listen for my [Mmm: yummy food noise]. Rrr-ooo-m. Slower: Rrrr-oo-ooo-mmm. That time I felt my lips come together over my teeth to make the /m/ sound. Mr. Monkey’s yummy food /m/ is in room.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Mister Monkey promised he would make is friend Mimi a special meal, but he needed to use her kitchen. Mimi’s favorite food is macaroni, so Mister Monkey decided to cook her that yummy meal to make her happy. Here’s our tickler: "Mr. Monkey makes macaroni in Mimi’s microwave." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /m/ at the beginning of the words. "Mmmister Mmmmonkey mmmakes mmmacaroni in Mmmimi’s mmmicrowave " Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/m/ister /m/onkey /m/akes /m/acaroni in /m/imi’s /m/icrowave.”
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter M to spell /m/. Capital M looks like a big bowl to fill with yummy food. Lowercase letter m looks like a camel’s back with two humps. Let's write the lowercase letter m. Start at the bottom of the fence and pull down to the sidewalk. Next, make an arc that goes up from the sidewalk, touches the fence, and comes back down to make one full hump. Then, complete that step again: for the second time you will make an arc that goes up from the sidewalk, touches the fence, and comes back down so that we have two full humps. I want to see everybody's m. After I put a check mark on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /m/ in dog or mix? Mouth or nose? Sun or moon? Mop or dust? Mule or horse? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /m/ in some words. Rub your tummy if you hear /m/: On, Monday, Macie, dropped, her, milk, and, made, a, massive, mess.
7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Our pea friends in this book tell us about lots of fun activities and jobs that start with every letter! When we read this book, they might mention some activities that you like to do too!" Find the page talking about the letter M and talk about its phoneme, /m/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /m/. Ask them to make up a silly name for one of our new pea friends like Mammer-mime or Mippy-Marmadap. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their goofy new vegetable friend. Display their work.
8. Show MAD and model how to decide if it is mad or bad: The M tells me to make my yummy /m/ sound (pantomime rubbing tummy), /m/, so this word is mmm-ad, mad. You try some: PET: pet or met? MEET: feet or meet? MOVE: move or groove? TALL: mall or tall? MAKE: bake or make? Now let’s try with a difficult word: do you hear /m/ in smart or cart?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheets. The first worksheet will just be used as a practice activity. The teacher will call out the end of the word on the worksheet, and students will repeat the word with it's starting sound /m/. Then, students write the letter m in each blank and connect the word to its picture with a line. [Example: Teacher will call out "ushroom" and the class will complete the word "mushroom."] (If there is extra time after completing the other worksheet, students can color these pictures as well.) For the second worksheet, students will be assessed by coloring each picture that starts with the letter M. This worksheet will serve as the assessment of the learned phoneme for this lesson.
References:
Bailey Sartin, Making a Mess with M.
https://sartinbailey27.wixsite.com/mysite/about
Book: Keith Baker, LMNO-peas, 2010, 40.
Assessment Worksheets:
http://www.morecoloringpages.com/work-sheets/fill-in-the-blank-letter-m_2980_color.html
http://www.tlsbooks.com/letterm_1.pdf
Emily Griffin: [email protected]