Tick Tock!

Sammie Patton


Rational:  Letter Recognition and Phoneme Awareness are the two most important factors in a childâ€™s learning to read. The goal for this lesson is to teach children to recognize the letter t and the sound it makes in spoken words. This lesson is important because it will teach students to recognize the â€œsymbolâ€� t and the corresponding sound that it makes. â€œA kindergarten child who has phonemic awareness will be ready to talk about the sounds that letters represent, but a child who has not developed this concept will not understand that letters and spellings represent spoken sounds (Burns, Griffin, & Snow, 1999; Griffith & Olson, 1992).



Picture of a clock saying "Tick Tock!"

Pictures of things with /t/ (Top, Tiger, Tent)

Picture of things without /t/. (Mop, Ship, Ball, Cake)

Tongue Twister: Tim's Teacher told him to Talk to Tom.

Dry Erase Board, Marker

Primary Paper


Plain White paper


Tony's Trip and The Letter T and Alphabet Friends book


1. To begin the lesson, I will first introduce the letter t by asking if anyone can tell me what sound a clock makes? Tick Tock, Tick Tock is right! The letter T makes this sound t-t-t when we say it in words. Now I will tell them to use their hands when they make the Tick Tock sound. Put your hands up like you are being windshield wipers and point you fingers like the â€œhandsâ€� on a clock and go back and forth. â€œTick-Tock, Tick Tock!â€� Very good!

2. Discuss with the children that the tongue hits the roof of your mouth and then pushes against the front teeth to make the /t/ sound. Lets all try making the /t/ sound together, t-t-t. Very good! Now letâ€™s see if we can sound like a clock and say Tick Tock, Tick Tock! Good!

3. Now I will show them the Tongue Twister that is on the board: â€œTimâ€™s Teacher Told him to Talk to Tom.â€� Can we all say that together 2 times?  That was great! Now, how about if we stretch out the t sound and say Ttttimâ€™s Tttteacher Tttttold him Tttto Ttttalk Ttto Ttttom. Very good everyone!

4. Next I will ask them in which words they hear the /t/ sound to assess their ability to identify this phoneme so far. Do you hear the /t/ sound in Tap or Map? Sack or Tack? Sun or Ton? Great Job!

 5. To allow the children to identify the letter t and the phoneme, I will give them primary paper and a pencil. First I will model how to write the lowercase letter t on the dry erase board. Can we all hold our pencil on the dotted line that has fence written beside it on our paper?Good! Now, take you pencil straight down all the way to the sidewalk. Now all you have to do is draw another line along the fence. Now you have made the letter t! Let's all make four more letter t's on our paper, ok? You all are doing a great job! "T"� is the letter that we use in words when we want to make the /t/ sound. If I want to spell Tap, I would write t-a-p on the board. This is how I will explain the concept of using letters as "symbols" for the sounds that we use to make words.

6. The activity for this lesson will be using the pictures with the things that begin with /t/ and the pictures that do not. I will hold up some pictures for you guys and if you hear the letter t then say Tick-Tock and remember our windshield wiper move? Let's all do that if we hear the /t/ sound. Ok, great! Let's start! (I will show the pictures of the top, mop, ship, tiger, tent, ball and cake.)

7. I will explain and then read this story about the letter t called, Tony's Trip to the Toy Store and the letter t by Cynthia Fitterer Klingel and Robert B. Noyed. This book is about a little boy named Tony and his trip to a toy store. Does anyone here the t sound in the title of this story? Listen really close for the t-t-t- sound: "Tony's Trip To the Toy store�. Did everyone hear it? Great! Now I am sure that everyone has been to a toy store, right? Well let's see what Tony finds in the Toy Store that start with the letter t! Keep a close listen for each toy because we are going to draw each toy that we find in the toy store on our piece of paper after we read, ok?"

8. To assess the children's knowledge of the letter /t/ I will draw a big clock on the board with some words that begin with the letter t and some that do not in place of numbers on the clock.(I will have enough words for each student to have a turn). We will go around the clock and say the words together and then each child will have a chance to come up and circle the words.



Burns, M.S, Griffin, P., & Snow, C.E. (Eds.). (1999). Starting out right: A guide to promoting children's reading success. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Available online: http://www.nap.edu/html/sor/

Burns, Griffin, and Snow, "Phoneme Awareness" http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content/cntareas/reading/li1lk70.htm

Tony's Trip and The Letter T and Alphabet Friends by Klingel and Noyed

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