Grade 2 · Lesson 46 — Sound, not letter

What this lesson is

Lesson 4 of 11 on alliteration. The single idea is: It is the SOUND that repeats, not the letter. 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: The trap: 'city' and 'cat' do not alliterate; 'phone' and 'fish' do. This breaks the visual rule the class has been using. The worked example is built on Screef, said the leaf that had been silent until now., ringing said the leaf.

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: words in between. 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 — “Grammar is not rules to obey — it is how meaning is made.” 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: It is the SOUND that repeats, not the letter. 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: Screef, said the leaf that had been silent until now. · the question · ring said the leaf · 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 Screef, said the leaf that had been silent until now. still marked when they start work.
6. The We-do runs 4 items on whiteboards — For Poodle and What?, there was nothing else to do. (p.75), That growly thing was full of grouchy grrr's and kkdd's. (p.79), four fat frogs, wet windy weather. 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 monster was there— right there with them! — 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.)