MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Foundational Skills/RF.PK.MA.3 Demonstrate beginning understanding of phonics and word analysis skills.
Head Start Outcomes:
Literacy Knowledge/Alphabet Knowledge Recognizes that letters of the alphabet have distinct sound(s) associated with them.
Literacy Knowledge/Alphabet Knowledge Attends to the beginning letters and sounds in familiar words.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Reading and Literature 8 Listen to, identify, and manipulate language sounds to develop auditory discrimination and phonemic awareness.
Learn About Letters Together: Guess My Word (/t/)
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
ELA Focus Skills: Phonological Awareness (Beginning Sounds), Sorting and Classifying
Tell children you are thinking of words that start with the /t/ sound. Create riddles around words relating to the week’s theme, such as tool words, construction words, and vocabulary terms relating to homes. (tool, tape measure, truck, triangle, etc.) Say, I will give you some clues and you try to guess the word I am thinking of that begins with the /t/ sound. Then say,
- I am thinking of a word that begins with the /t/ sound. It is a tool that is used to tell how long something is. Can you tell me what it is? (tape measure)
- I am thinking of a big machine. It has four wheels. It is used to move heavy materials around. Can you tell me what it is? (truck)
- A builder has many different types of this word. Some are used to hammer nails, some are used to measure things, some are used to screw things in. Can you tell me what these are called? (tools)
You may want to have pictures of the objects available to help children generate the words and reinforce the words’ meanings.
English Language Learners: If English language learners have difficulty naming the object in English, have them name it in their home language. Say the word in English and have children repeat it.