Emergent Literacy

Emergent Literacy Design: The Ticking Clock with T

By: Madison Wilhite

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 sound analogy (ticking clock) and the letter symbolT, 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; chart with “Tom’s tiny teddy tickles toes”; drawing paper and crayons; George Bove’s The Little Orange T(Mascot Books, 2016); word cards with TAN, TOP, FAKE, TAG, PART, and TEEN; 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. T looks like the arm of a clock, and /t/ sounds like a ticking clock.

2. Let’s pretend to tick like a clock, /t/, /t/, /t/. [Pantomime a ticking clock] Notice that we can tick to the very top of our clocks (have “clock” arm pointed straight up). When we say /t/, we push our tongue on the very top of our mouth and then pull it down as we push air out.

3. Let me show you how to find /t/ in the word pet. I’m going to stretch petout in super slow motion and listen for the top of the clock. Pp-e-e-t. Slower: Ppp-e-e-e-tt. There it was! I felt my tongue touch the top of my mouth and push out air. The top of the clock is in pet.

4. Let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Tom has a teddy bear, a tiny stuffed animal. When Tom sleeps, his teddy bear gets pushed down to his feet. The stuffed animal tickles his toes. Here’s our tickler: “Tom’s tiny teddy tickles toes.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /t/ at the beginning of the words. “Ttttom’s tttiny ttteddy tttickles tttoes.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/t/ om’s /t/ iny /t/ eddy /t/ ickles /t/ oes.”

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter T to spell /t/. Capital T looks like the arm of a clock. To write the uppercase letter T, we are going to go down and cross at the top. Now, Let’s write the lowercase letter t. Lowercase t is just a teenager, not as tall as his daddy, but not short. Then, 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 light or dark? Sitor lay? lickor bite? Flator lumpy? Tanor pale? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /t/ in some words. Tick your clock if you hear /t/: The, tall, timid, bear, talked, to, the, friendly, tiger.

7. Say: “Let’s look at a book about the letter T. George Bove tells us about a little, orange T that gets rejected from a bowl of alphabet soup!“ Read page 3, drawing out /t/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /t/. Ask them to make up a silly name like Tootey Tilley Tillafer, or Twilley Twalley Tateler. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of alphabet soup but with all T’s. Display their work.

8. Show TAN and model how to decide if it is tanor man: The Ttells me to tick my clock, /t/, so this word is ttt-an, tan. You try some: TOP: top or mop? TAKE: fake or take? TAG: tag or lag? TART: part or tart? TEEN: teen or mean?

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: Madison Whitfield Wilson, Time Tick Toks with T's https://madisonwwilson.weebly.com/emergent-literacy.html

Assessment worksheet: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-t_WFNTM.pdf?up=1466611200

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