Letter P

Teaching The Letter P

To teach your child the P sound, you need to ask them to press their lips together and then push air out from their mouth slightly while forcing their lips apart. There is no requirement for any nasal sound when pronouncing the letter P.

The following are words that start with P that your child may already know:

Pan

Pat

Pin

Pot

Pen

Pull

To successfully teach the letter P to your child, you will need to show a great deal of patience and be prepared to work with them every day. Start by reading to your toddler all of the time. There are dedicated letter P books available, and you could look for these in your library. They are also available online and in stores. Go for a book with nursery rhymes and fun illustrations, as this will help your child learn.

Your child will enjoy learning about the letters in their name, and if it has a P in it then you can show them the letters and where the letter P is situated. If they don’t have letter P in their name, then find other names starting with P from family members or TV characters they would know. Show the letters of these names to your child so they understand that they begin with P.

Here are some names that begin with P that your child may be familiar with:

Poppy

Polly

Penny

Peter

Paul

Pat

These are more difficult names beginning with P that you can show to your child:

Phoebe

Penelope

Patricia

Phillip

Pearce

Percival

If Your Child Enjoys Learning They Will Want To Learn More

You need to have fun teaching the letter P to your toddler. It needs to be fun for them, and you can enjoy it too. Later on in this article, you will see a number of letter P activities which will be fun for both of you to do. You can start off by using letter P worksheets that have funny drawings to entertain your child. These worksheets are available online.

Getting your child to learn and sing letter P songs is a really fun way to learn. This can be even more pleasurable for them if you learn the songs too, and sing them together. There are letter P videos which are very entertaining for children as well, so find some of these and watch them together. A great letter P song which is a letter P video also can be found below.

When you sing the P song together with your child you are forming a very special bond with them. They will love the experience, and remember it for many years. It is really important that you put the time into this. Young children want to repeat good things over and over, so if they want to sing the song again and again you should do this with them.

Want Some More Fun Letter P Activities For Preschool Children?

There are a number of other fun activities that you can do with your child to learn the letter P. These include:

Finding Animals That Begin With P

Animal games are always fun for kids. Here you will be looking for animals that begin with the letter P. There are quite a few of these, and it is possible that your child will already know pig, panda, parrot, penguin and polar bear. Tell them about a panther, puffin, puma, pheasant, pike, platypus, porcupine and possum as well. As usual, spell out the letters in each animal’s name so that your toddler can see that they all begin with P.

More of a challenge is to find animals with the letter P in their names but not beginning with P. Examples are the antelope, capybara, chimpanzee, leopard, dolphin, elephant, sheep, millipede, hippopotamus, marsupial, scorpion and spider. Use plastic letters to spell out the animal names and show your child where the letter P is situated in each word.

Look For Things That Start With The Letter P At Home

There are several things that start with letter P to be found in your home. If you can’t think of any then here are some examples – pail, paintbrush, pan, pajamas, pan cake, pants, paper, peach, peanut butter, pencil, pen, pet, piano, pie, pillow, plant, plate and puzzle. Show these items to your toddler, and then spell out each word and confirm that they all start with the letter P.

Think about other P words that your child may have heard from members of the family or on the TV. There is parent, people, pattern, pride, power, police, park, path, pink, princess, perfect, picture, post office, pretty, popular and plenty as examples. Show pictures or real life examples to explain the meaning of these words and spell out the letters too.

How about words with the letter P in them but not words starting with P? There are a lot of these, so start with some easy ones such as happy, diaper, telephone, cup, cap, top, cop, lips and hips. You can show real life examples of these words (e.g. pointing to your hips) and of course show the letters of the words by writing them or using toy letters.

You can look for other P words for kids outside as well. When you go to the store look for words beginning with P as well as words that contain the letter P. You can do this when you are travelling on the bus or in the car as well, by trying to find street signs that have the letter P in them.

Teach Your Child About The Two Formats Of The Letter P

Your child needs to know that the letter P is written in two formats, which are the capital letter P (big letter P) and the lowercase letter P (small letter P). You can find pictures of the letter P in these two formats online, or you can simply use a word processor to create these and then print them out.

Explain the difference between the two formats and when a capital letter P would be used. You can use the example of a person’s name or the name of a country, Let your child trace around the two formats of the letter P so that they get used to them. They will need to know how to write these in the future.

Phonics Of The Letter P Must Be Learned

All of the letters of the alphabet have unique sounds known as phonemes. Combining certain letters produces phonemes as well. Your child will need phonics instruction to become a really good reader. By learning the phonics of the different letters, they will develop their phonemic awareness which will accelerate their reading development. Below is more information about the letter P sounds.

English Alphabet LETTER P SOUNDS:

P  /p/:

The 16th letter in the alphabet is P which is an unvoiced consonant that is pronounced by forcing air through the mouth. It is sometimes mistakenly taught as “puh” but should never be spoken that way to your child. Always teach your child to pronounce is as “PEE” not “PUH”.

Examples:

PAD: /p/ /a/ /d/

POP: /p/ /o/ /p/

POPE: /p/ /o/ /p/ /e/

Exercises for /p/

1. Take time to print a piece of paper for the Letter P/p/
2. Also print a piece of paper your words or ours, for the Letter P:
   PAN
   POP
   LAP
   PAPA

SNAP
RAP

1. Show your child the Letter on the index card or paper and repeat the letter sound several times: P
2. Take time with your child to be sure the /p/ sound is pronounced correctly
3. Listen carefully as your child repeats the sound after you
4. Ask your child if different words have the /p/ sound and wait to see the response. Always repeat the word using the letter sound to be sure your child knows the sound
5. Continue to repeat other short sound I words such as PRAY, PUT, PACK, PAN
6. Finalize the lesson by asking your child to tell you the sound of the letters

Teaching Your Child To Read At Home Is A Great Gift, But You Will Need Some Assistance

Most parents would like to teach their child how to read before they attend school, but do not feel that they have the skills required to do this. You do not have to go and study to be a teacher to help your toddler learn to read. There are some very high quality reading programs available that will instruct you on how to do this, and provide all of the necessary materials too.

These reading programs vary in price and quality. The best reading program out there is Jim Yang’s Children Learning Reading program which is not expensive at all. Why is it the best? Well it has been proven by thousands of satisfied parents who have all taught their children to read at home. Find out more about the excellent Children Learning Reading program by clicking here.

Easily teach the letter Q to your child by clicking here to go to the next section of this alphabet learning series.