Emergent Literacy Design
Slither like a Slimy, Sticky Snake with S
Rhiannon Akins
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. Students will learn to recognize /s/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (the letter S resembles the slither of the snake) and the letter symbol S, practice finding /s/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /s/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Sara’s slimy snake slithers smoothly side to side to the street”; crayons; Dr. Seuss’s ABC: (Random House, 1963) by Dr. Seuss. word cards with the REED, STREET, TIDE, SOCK; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /s/.
Procedures:
1. Say: The complicated part of the written owrd is learning what letters stand for – the mouth moves when we try to make words. Today we are going to work on the sound /s/ which comes from the letter, S. See if you can spot the letter S and sound /s/ when we say certain words. S looks like a snake slithering and /s/ sounds like a snake hissing.
2. Let’s pretend we are a snake by making the hissing sound, /s/, /s/, /s/. When we say /s/ we put our tongue to the roof of our mouth and blow out air to make a hissing sound.
3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word ask. I’m going to stretch task out in super slow motion and listen for my snake hiss. Ttt---aaa---s-s-s-kkkk. There it was! I felt my tongue on the roof of my mouth making the snake hiss. I can feel the snake hiss in the /s/ in task.
4. Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. “Sara’s slimy snake slithers smoothly side to side to the street”. Everyone say it three times together! Now say it one more time and this time try to stretch out the /s/ sound at the beginning of the words. “Sssssara’s sssslimy sssssnake sssssslithers sssssmoothly sssside to sssside to the sssssstreet.” Try it again and this time break the /s/ off the word. “/S/ara’s /s/limy /s/nake /s/lithers /s/moothly /s/ide to /s/ide to the /s/treet.
5. Have students take out primary paper and pencil. Say: We use the letter S to spell /s/. Capital S and lowercase s look very similar. The only difference is how big they are. For uppercase S, you start on the fence and make a C but going up to the rooftop, then cross the fence and loop back down to the sidewalk like you are doing a backwards C. It looks kind of like the snake we were talking about earlier. I want to see everyone’s s. After I approve it and tell you to continue, let’s try to make 10 more just like it. Then let’s try a lowercase s. You start under the fence and make a little c and then loop back, making a backwards c that ends on the sidewalk. After you have done those both ten times you get a reward(sticker of eraser).
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /s/ in sun or tocl? Sail or frame? Sky or light? Made or say? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Make your snake hiss if you hear /s/: Time, Snug, pail, soar, water, she, boo, grew, stake, red, stream
7. Say: Let’s look at the book ABC by Dr. Seuss. He talks about a boy drinking a soda. Can you guess his name? Try to think of what the boys name could be before you look. Hint: it starts with an S and the /s/ hissing sound. Flip to the page with /s/ on it. Have each student write the name and draw him drinking a soda. Display work.
8. Show SUN and model how to see if it is SUN or FUN: The S tells me to make the snake hiss, /s/ so this word is sss-and, sand. You try some: REED: REED or SEED?, STREET: BEAT or STREET?, TIDE: RIDE or TIDE SOCK: SOCK or ROCK?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to say words out loud and listen for the /s/ and then color the pictures on the pageas they connect the dots to the ones starting with S. Call students up one by one to read the phonetic cue words that we listed in #8.
Assessment worksheet:
Reference:
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