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Talking /t/ with Tim the Tiny Turtle

Rationale:

This lesson will help children identify /t/, the phoneme represented by T. Students will learn to recognize /t/ in spoken words by learning how to identify the letter t, how to make the /t/ sound, practice finding /t/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /t/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Materials:

Primary paper and pencil; poster with Tim the tiny turtle and his /t/ phoneme and a tongue tickler: “Tim the tiny turtle went to the tub to swim”, drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with TAP, FIT, TEN, CAT, BAG, SAD, DOG and TAKE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /t/ (URL below).

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. To make the /t/ sound we place our tongue directly behind our front teeth, push forward with your tongue and release. It should sound like a ticking timer "/t/ /t/ /t/."

2. Let's try making the sound. Where is your tongue? Is it behind your front teeth? Good Job! Now push your tongue toward the teeth then bring it back to where it usually is. 3. Let me show you how to find /t/ in the word cat. I'm going to stretch left out in super slow motion and wait until I feel my tongue touch behind my teeth. C-a-a-t. Slower: C-c-a-a-a-t There it was! I felt my tongue touch my teeth. /t/ is in cat.

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on poster]. Here’s our tickler: “Tim the tiny turtle went to the tub to swim.” Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /t/ in the words. "Tttttim the ttttiny tttturttttle wentttt ttto the tttub ttto swim" Try it again, and this time break it off the word: " T im the T imy T turtle wen T T o the T ub T o swim.”

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter T to spell /t/. Capital T looks like a light pole. Let's write the lowercase letter t. Start just below the top line. Start to pull the pencil down to the bottom line. Then cross it 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 toe or finger? Box or top? on or to? Lift or drop? store or book? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /t/ in some words. Point to Tiny Tim if you see the mouth move (he should be on the poster) Time, car, school, tap, foot, egg.

7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a funny creature with four feathers growing right out of his head!" Read page 39, drawing out /t/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /t/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like tipttooee, or tookietop. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.

8. Show TAP and model how to decide if it is tap or map: The T tells me to place my tongue behind my front teeth push forward and release, /t/, so this word is ttttt-ap, tap. You try some: TEN: ten or ben? TOOK: took or book? TIME: time or mine? TAKE: take or make?

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

Reference:

Hear the Tick Tocks of the Clock with T:An Emergent Literacy Design By:Abby Kaye Jones

https://abbykj00.wixsite.com/mysite/emergent-literacy

Assessment:

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-t_WFNTM.pdf

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