Morgan Anderson's
Lesson Designs
"Say Yum with M"
An Emergent Literacy Design
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 (rubbing their stomach while saying mmm-mmm yummy) 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 "My Mom makes marvelous muffins"; poster with letter M, drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with MAD, MAP, MEET, MAN, MIND, and MAKE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /m/ (URL below).
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Procedures: 1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves we make as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /m/. We spell /m/ with letter M. Show poster with letter M.
2. Let's pretend to eat something yummy and rub our tummy. Say “Mmm-mmm Yummy” while you rub your stomach. Now lets all do it together and say “Mmm-mm yummy” while we rub our tummies. Now ask “did anyone notice what our mouth did when we said mmm-mmm? When we say /m/, we press our lips together and it makes the /m/ sound.
3. Let me show you how to find /m/ in the word jam. I'm going to stretch jam out in super slow motion and listen for /m/ like we heard when we said mmm-mmm. Jjjj-aa-mmm. Slower: jjj-a-a-a-mmm There it was! I felt my lips press together and make the /m/ sound. Mmm-mmm /m/ is in jam.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. My mom loves to bake. She especially loves to make muffins. Here’s our tickler: "My Mom makes marvelous muffins" Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /m/ at the beginning of the words. "Mmmmy Mmmmom mmmakes mmmarvelous mmmuffins" Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/m/ y /m/ om /m/ akes /m/ arvelous /m/ uffins.
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter M to spell /m/. Let's write the lowercase letter m. To write a lower case m, take your pencil and start at the dotted line, lets call it “the fence.” Go down to the sidewalk, then back up to the fence, making a bump when you bring your pencil back down to the sidewalk. Do this again, come back up to the fence and make another bump, then go back to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody's m. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make five more just like it.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /m/ in mom or dad? moon or soon? beef or ham? ketchup or mustard? yours or mine? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /m/ in some words. Rub your stomach if you hear /m/ and say yuck if you don’t: jam, hamburger, plum, ice cream, chocolate cake, mushrooms, beans, marshmallows.
7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about some mice in the moonlight!" Read page with letter M, drawing out /m/ and getting students to rub stomachs when they hear /m/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /m/. Ask them to think of other animals that start with m. Then have each student draw their M animal in the moonlight. Display their work.
8. Show MAD and model how to decide if it is mad or sad: The M tells me to rub my tummy, /m/, so this word is mmm-ad, mad. You try some: MAP: map or tap? MEET: feet or meet? MAN: man or fan? MIND: find or mind? MAKE: fake or make?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with M. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
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References: Hope Roberts, Mmmm Yummy!
https://sites.google.com/site/ctrdreadinghope/home/emergent-literacy-mmmm-yummy
Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/m-begins1.htm
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