Grade 2 · Lesson 44 — Alliteration across a line

What this lesson is

Lesson 2 of 11 on alliteration. The single idea is: The repeated start-sound can run through a whole line. The tool the children are handed is the question “Do the sounds match, and where?” — by the end of the topic that question, not the teacher, settles every case. Held constant today: Three or more words, all adjacent. The worked example is built on Those consonants are so harsh; we had to march., ringing consonants are so.

Recall — sixty seconds, before anything new

Retrieve: Rhyme · Two-level analysis in context. Ask for it before you introduce anything, take the answers from boards rather than from hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on. This is the middle of the launch: context, then this, then why it matters. Only what today leans on — a minute spent retrieving something unrelated costs the same and buys nothing, and the child who cannot recall the prerequisite is the one you will lose in the I-do.

How it goes

1. Sixty seconds of retrieval opens it: “Yesterday: the sound at the start. Quick — one together.” Same language as when it was taught, a new example. If the class cannot do this, that is today's real work — stop and reteach.
2. Ten seconds on why it matters — “When we write it clearly, the reader understands us the first time.” Your words, not those; it is a different reason every lesson so what lands is the idea rather than a sentence they can recite.
3. You name the one idea: The repeated start-sound can run through a whole line. Then the plan — what it is, the question we ask, and that we will find them together.
4. Then you do one yourself, on screen, one click per move: Those consonants are so harsh; we had to march. · the question · ring consonants are so · name it alliteration. Do it exactly the way you want it done — this is the task they are about to do on their boards, not an easier one.
5. You build the same thing on the board and leave it up for alliteration. The four steps are identical in every lesson of this unit — sentence, question, test, answer — so the children read the method rather than the layout, and today's board shows Those consonants are so harsh; we had to march. still marked when they start work.
6. The We-do runs 4 items on whiteboards — The growl was coming from somewhere off the page. (p.80), He was an author, and you can't stop authors. (p.83), seven silent stars, brisk brown bird. You are scanning for who applies the question and who is guessing from meaning; those look identical on a right answer and completely different on a wrong one.
7. Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves — Sheet and pencil · Ask the question on every item · Find the alliteration in each one. Then they work alone, with the same worked example printed at the head of their sheet.
8. Close on The wind said wh as the wind machine slowed. — an item they have not met, so it measures rather than reminds — then the line they leave with: “Alliteration is about sound.”
9. Watch for: Judges by first LETTER instead of first sound — The letter is visible and the sound is not — and for four lessons they agreed. If you see it: “Say them. Do they START the same? 'City' and 'cat' do not.” (Remedial sheet 24.)