Miss Stone's Reading Lessons

​Can You Hear the Beat?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /t/, the phoneme represented by T. Students will learn to recognize /t/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (hitting two cymbals together) and the letter symbol T, practice finding /t/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /t/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters. Also, students should be taught what a Hihat is. This is a drum instrument where two cymbals rest until hit. Hitting it produces the /t/ sound.

 

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Ted Told Turtle Thomas To Take his Time”; drawing paper and crayons; The Ocean Alphabet Book (Charlesbridge, 2003); word cards with Tag, Tip, Test, Talk, Torn, Teach; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /t/.

 

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 /t/. We spell /t/ with letter T. T looks like a Hihat. This is basically the instrument a drummer uses that is mounted on a stick with two cymbals. When you hit it in a pattern you can hear it go /t/. Here is a video to show us how a hihat works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8syiOwwVyY . 

 

2. Let's pretend to hit the cymbals, /t/, /t/, /t/. [Pantomime hitting the cymbals] Notice how the tip of your tongue jumps from the roof of your mouth back down. When we say /t/, we first suck in air and then release it following the movement of the tongue.

 

3. Let me show you how to find /t/ in the word soft. I'm going to stretch soft out in super slow motion and listen for my cymbals. Ss-o-f-t Slower: Sss-o-o-o-fff-t There it was! I felt my tongue touch the roof of my mouth and let out air. I can feel the cymbals /t/ in soft.

 

4. Let's try a tongue twister [on chart]. "Ted Told Turtle Thomas To Take his Time” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /f/ at the beginning of the words. "Tttted Tttold Tttturttttle Tttthomas Ttto Ttttake his Ttttime” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/t/ ed /t/ old /t/ ur /t/ le /t/ homas /t/ o /t/ ake his /t/ ime.

 

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter T to spell /t/. Capital T looks like a hihat. Let's write the lowercase letter t. Start from the top and go all the way down to the sidewalk. Lowercase t is just a teenager, not as tall as his daddy, but not short; cross at the fence. I want to see everybody's t. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

 

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /t/ in time or mine? tree or bush? dog or top? Tiger or lion? small or tiny? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /t/ in some words. Hit your cymbals if you hear /t/: Tina, took, a, small, tulip, and, planted, it.

 

7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. In Jerry Pallota’s book The Ocean Alphabet many fish explore the ocean! Each special fish contributes in some way and you’ll have to look to find them! What fish starts with T? (draw out the /t/) Tuna! Ask children if they can think of other words with /t/. Ask them to be scientists and make up a new unique fish like tuffer-tiff or tettraa-fish. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their new fish. Display their work.

 

8. Show TAG and model how to decide if it is Tag or wag: The T tells me to hit my cymbals, /t/, so this word is ttt-ahh-g, tag. You try some: Tip: pip or tip? Test: test or nest? Talk: balk or talk? Torn: torn or mourn? Teach: beach or teach?

 

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that begin with T. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step.

 

Reference:

Book: Jerry Pallota, The Ocean Alphabet Book, Watertown, MA, Charlesbridge, 2003, 28 pgs.

Book: Bruce Murray, Making Sight Words: Teaching Word Recognition from Phoneme Awareness to Fluency, Auburn, AL, Linus Publications, Inc., 2012, 380 pgs.

Example EL Design located on Canvas

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a picture of a Hihat with two cymbals. The stand makes the I of the T and the actual instrument makes the - for T. It can also be changed to make a lowercase t.