Teaching Letter P and the /p/ Sound

We will teach the letter P and its sound here. To make the /p/ sound, your start with your mouth closed and lips touching, and your teeth apart. As your mouth open, a puff of air is pushed through to make the /p/ sound.

Note: the name of letter P is "PEE", but it's sound is /p/, and you may see it written sometimes as "PUH".

However, it's important to note here that P makes a voiceless sound, that is, there is no vibration made in the vocal cords. So if you ended up saying the /p/ sound as "PUH", you will make an incorrect sound that becomes voiced by making the "-UH" sound.

Notice in the video when she first sounded "P" as "puh", I corrected her right away to say /p/ and not "puh".

Letter P and B make 2 different sounds, but the mouth position of the two sounds are the same. The only difference here is that letter P is unvoiced while letter B /b/ sound is voiced. Try making the /p/ and /b/ sounds. You'll notice that no sound comes from your vocal cords with the /p/ sound, while a sound is made from the vocal cords for the /b/ sound.

Try these example words for B and P:

BAD - /b/ /a/ /d/

PAD - /p/ /a/ /d/

POP - /p/ /o/ /p/

Learning Activity for /p/

• Prepare a printout for letter P
• Also print the following words:
  • PAN
  • POP
  • LAP
  • MAP
  • PAPA
  • SNAP

1. Show the letter P to your child and demonstrate how to make the proper unvoiced /p/ sound. Do not teach it as "PUH".
2. Let your child practice the /p/ sound several times.
3. Work on the letter P words listed above.
4. Note that letter P is a short sound that cannot be stretched. If you try to stretch it, you'll only end up distorting its sound.
5. Using the word list above, ask your child to find all the /p/ sounds in each of the words.
6. Work on the printable letter P worksheet provided below along with the rhyme.

Letter P Worksheets

 

   

Letter P Rhyme and Song

Grandpa cooks dinner.

Look, a spot on the pot!

Quick, wipe that spot off that pot.

Grandpa gives me some pop.

P-P-P-Pop, goes the pop can.

Oops, I spill the pop.

Quick, get the mop;

Get the mop and mop up that pop.

I mop up the pop.

Now there's no more pop.

Grandpa, can I have some more p-p-p-pop?