Ta-Ta-Timer

Ta-Ta- Timer

Rationale: One of the most important indicators of a successful reader is a student's ability to identify letters. The purpose of this lesson is for the student to be able to identify a letter of the alphabet. The student will be able to recognize this letter in print and in spoken language. The letter and phoneme that I have chosen is the letter t and /t/. The student will be able to write the letter in both lower and upper case.

Materials:
Poster with tongue twister on it, Tony took two turtles to town on Tuesday.
Primary paper
a pencil for each student
One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies
The coloring worksheets for each student

Procedures:
1.) Start the lesson by introducing the fact that we are going to learn a new letter today. We are going to say the letter's sound, /t/, together and examine closely the movement of our mouths. Understand that it is our mouth that is going to make us able to pronoun that letter's sound, /t/, right. Let's think about all the words we know that have the sound /t/ at the beginning or end or even middle of them. What is our mouth doing when we say /t/. Our tongue is up on our front top teeth isn't it? Let's make sure when we say the letter t that that is what our mouth is doing.

2.) Ask the students: Who has been at your house and your mom or dad set a timer for something. It might have been for the stove or maybe for time out. Do you remember the sound that the timer makes? Kind of a ta-ta-ta-ta. Let's act as our arm is the ticker on the timer. (Turn your arm around like a clock for each ta.) Well, that is the kind of sound that the letter t makes. The sound of our timers /t/.

3.) Everyone look up here at my poster with our tongue twister on it. Tony took two turtles to town on Tuesday. Let's all say this together. That is hard and gets our tongue twisted doesn't it. Everyone say it with me two more times. Let's do it again but this time we are going to put up our timer arms. Every time we hear the /t/ sound we are going to stretch it out and move our timer arm one ta. TTTony tttook tttwo ttturtles ttto tttown on TTTuesday. That was fun wasn't it? Let's do it again but this time separate the /t/ from the rest of the word: /t/ ony /t/ ook /t/ wo /t/ urtles /t/ o /t/ own on /t/ uesday.

4.) [Take out primary paper and pencil] It is very important that we use the letter t in our writings when you hear the sound /t/. Let's write it. Start at the rooftop and go straight down all the way to the sidewalk. Go back to the top and cross the top right under the rooftop. That is a capital T. We use capital letters when we writing names of people, places, or things. Also, we could use a capital letter if it is at the beginning of a sentence. Now, let's write a lower case t. Start between the rooftop and the fence, bring your pencil straight down to the sidewalk. Go back and cross your t at the fence. This is a younger t he is smaller that dad capital T. When you have written a capital and a lowercase I'm going to check and place a sticker on your paper. When you have your sticker, make a line of 10 capital Ts and a line of 10 lower case ts.

5.) Let's practice seeing if we locate our new letter we have learned letter t or our new sound we have learned /t/. We will start with the word boat. Let's see bbbbooaataa! Did we hear the ta ta in boat. Yes, we do. We will go through exercises like this with the words truck, wrote, tongue, love, and swing. Look for your tongue to go to the back of your top teeth.

6.) Then the students will be asked to compare two words and see which one they find the /t/ sound. Do you hear /t/ in truck or buck? Brown or town? Bat or bag? Car or cart? Be careful when you say these words and see if your mouth makes your tongue go to the back of your teeth.

7.) Read One Tiny Turtle and talk about the story. This story is about a Turtle that starts out an egg and grows into a tiny turtle. To learn about the adventure this tiny turtle goes through we will have to read One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies. We are going to read it and have the students do the ticking with their arms when they hear a /t/. We are going to talk about turtles and an experience they might have had where they saw one or even touched one. If someone has not had an experience with a turtle then get them to imagine what it would be like.

8.) There is a coloring sheet with a checked flower. In the boxes are words. If you have a word with /t/ at the beginning color it read. If the /t/ is in the middle color it green and if it doesn't have a /t/ then it is to be colored blue. If done correctly then the picture is a flower with a stem when finished.

Amy Whitcomb. "Sammy the Slimy Snake" http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/whitcombel.html

Cassie Simpson. "The B Beat"�. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/simpsonel.html

Adams, Marilyn Jager. Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. Urbana, IL: Center for the Study of Reading, 36-43

Davies, Nicola. One Tiny Turtle. Scholastic, Inc. New York. 2001.

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