Today's Practice:  Listen to the following paragraph.  Try to hear the "thought groups" by listening for the pauses.  Notice the pitch rising on the stressed word and falling at the end of the thought group.  Use the visuals in the PDF to help you.

Over the weekend, I went for a hike.  It was a pretty cold day, so I had to wear a lot of warm clothes, including a hat and gloves.  I was up in the mountains, though, and I stayed pretty warm while I was climbing. After a mile or 2, there was a lot of ice and snow on the trail.  I stopped and pulled out my micro spikes from my backpack.  These are metal spikes attached to a rubber strap that stretches over your boots.  They make it so your boots grip into the ice and you don't slide.  Without them, I wouldn't want to hike up in the snow and ice.  With them, I can go a lot of cool places.  Or maybe I should say cold places.