Emergent Literacy | earlychildeducation

Emergent Literacy Design: Mama, mama, make me some jambalaya with the letter M!

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 (saying Mama repeatedly) and the letter M, practice finding /m/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /m/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from becoming letters.

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; poster board with “On Mondays Michael’s mother Mary mostly mopped;” drawing paper and crayons; word cards with MAN, MAKE, FORK, MOON, PEN, and MEET; Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963); assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /m/ (URL below).

Procedures:

1. Say: Our written language is a secret code, which helps us to communicate with each other. It is important to learn the letters made up in our secret code so that we understand what those letters stand for. As we say those letters our mouths move in particular motions unique to those letters. Today we’re going to see how our mouth moves as we say /m/. We spell /m/ with letter M. M looks like the golden arches at the McDonald’s restaurant, and /m/ sounds like (Mmm) something delicious you are eating.

2. Let’s pretend that we are all eating something very tasty, /m/, /m/, /m/. [Pantomime eating something very delicious] Notice how your lips come together and cave in? (Touching caved in lips). When we say /m/, our lips come together and then push out air between our top lip and lower lip.

3. Let me show you how to find /m/ in the word mouse. I’m going to slowly say mouse, and I want you to listen for the (Mmm) when you are eating something tasty. Mmm-ou-se. Slower: Mmm-ou-ou-ou-sss-e. There it was! I felt my lips come together, cave in, and blow out air. I can feel the (Mmm) eating something delicious /m/ in mouse.

4. Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. “On Monday’s Michael’s mother Mary mostly mopped.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /m/ at the beginning of the words. “On Mmmonday’s Mmmichael’s mmmother Mmmary mmmostly mmmopped.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “On /m/ onday’s /m/ ichael’s /m/ other /m/ ary /m/ ostly /m/ opped.”

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter M to spell /m/. Capital M looks like the McDonald’s restaurant golden arches. Let’s write the lowercase letter m. Start at the fence. Go down to the sidewalk, hump around, and hump around. I want to see everybody’s m. After I see your m, I will put a tiger paw stamp on your paper, and then I want you to practice writing the lowercase letter m 9 more times.

6. Tell students to respond “Yay” if they can hear the /m/ in a word or “Nay” if there is no /m/ in the word you say. Do you hear /m/ in meat or walk? Calm or cook? Throw or map? Mug or soon? Me or go? Friend or them? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /m/ in some words. Say (Mmm) as if you are eating something delicious if you hear /m/: Tell, thumb, price, make, cat, mask, lamp, star, ocean, moon.

7. Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about all the letters in the alphabet using animals and he describes the letter M by saying, ‘Big M, little m, what begins with M? Mice in the moonlight, M…m…M.’” Read page 16, drawing out /m/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /m/ that they see on a daily basis. Ask the children to make up a silly creature name using /m/ like Mootie- Mootie- Moot. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw/color a picture of their silly creature. Each student will present their creature during circle time.

8. Show MAT and model how to decide if it is mat or bat: The M tells me that something is very delicious, /m/ /m/ /m/, so this word is mmmmm-at, mat. You try some: MAIL: mail or tail? MAKE: fake or make? MOTH: moth or both? MOON: soon or moon? MAN: man or ran?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with M. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8. Assess the responses given by the children to observe and record whether the students can or cannot use the strategy taught in this lesson.

References:

Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1990). Acquiring the alphabetic principle: A case for teaching recognition of phoneme identity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 805-812.

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

Christine Haley, P-P-Pitter Patter of P: http://cmh0049.wix.com/christinelessons#!emergent-literacy/c10fk

Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/m-begins2.htm

Click here to return to the Connections Index