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Making Music with M

Emergent Literacy Lesson

By Allissa Stanley

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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 sound analogy (making music) 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 beginnings letters (especially N).

 

Materials:

• Primary paper

• Pencil

• picture of music notes and tongue tickler “Making Music with Martha and Mike”

• crayons

• Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963)

• Words cards with MAKE, MAP, MAN, FUN, NOTE, MUD, MOP

• Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /m/

 

Procedures:

1. “Today we’re going to work on getting to know the sound that the letter M makes. I’m going to show you what shape and movement your mouth makes when you make the /m/ sound. We spell that sound with the M. It has two humps like a mountain.

2. “Let’s pretend we have a song in our head, and we are humming the tune. Everybody hum your favorite song! Now pay attention to your lips. Are they touching or not touching? Mine are touching in between my teeth.”

3. Let’s try a tongue tickler. We have two friends named Martha and Mike. We are going to make music together. Here’s our tongue ticker: “Making Music with Martha and Mike.” Let’s all say it together. Now say it again and this time stretch out the /m/ at the beginning of the words. “Mmmaking Mmmusic with Mmmartha and Mmmike.” Try again and this time separate the /m/ sound from the rest of the word. “/m/ aking /m/ usic with /m/ artha and /m/ ike.”

4. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil.] “We use the letter M to spell /m/. Capital M looks like two mountain peaks and lowercase m looks like two hills. Let’s write the lowercase letter m. Start at the fence and draw a line to the sidewalk, form a curved line back to the fence and back to the sidewalk. After I check your m, I want you to make nine more just like it.”

5. Call on students and ask them to tell how they knew: Do you hear /m/ in make or fun? Monday or Wednesday? Man or kid? Home or park? Moose or goose? Say: “Let’s see if you can spot /m/ in some words. Play an air instrument if you hear /m/: The, messy, moose, makes, so, much, memorable, music.”

6. “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about mice singing midnight music in the moonlight” Read page 30, drawing out /m/. Ask children if they can think of other words that start with /m/.

7. Show MAN and model how to decide if its man or fan: “The M tells me to say /m/-/m/-/m/ and play an air instrument, so this word is mmm-an. You try some: MIX: fix or mix? MAP: map or nap? MAKE: make or fake? MUD: mud or bud? MIND: mind or find?”

8. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with M. Call students individually to read the phonic cue words from step #8.

 

Worksheet:

https://easypeasylearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Letter-M-Worksheet-Set.pdf (page 1)

 

References:

Munching with M!

https://kendallmckone1.wixsite.com/educationalportfolio/emergent-literacy

 

Dan the Dino Stomps

https://mlb0133.wixsite.com/ctrd3000/emergent-literacy

 

Mmmm! That’s Good!

https://sites.google.com/view/ctrdlessondesigns/emergent-literacy-design?authuser=1

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Reading Genie Awakenings Index 

https://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/awakenings/ 

 

Books:

Seuss. Dr. Seuss’s ABC. HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2016.