Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. Students will learn to recognize /s/ in spoken words by learning meaningful representation (slithering snake) and the letter symbol S, practice finding /s/ 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 “Sarah’s snake slithers slowly”; drawing paper and crayons/markers; assessment worksheets identifying words with /s/ (URL below); Sam and the Sap (URL below); word cards with SAT, SOCK, SING, SUN, SAIL, and SAW.
Procedures: 1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for – the mouth moves we make as we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /s/. We spell /s/ with letter S. S looks like a snake and makes the sound a snake makes too.
2. Let’s pretend to sound like a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. (Move arms like a moving snake) Notice where your teeth are? (They are closed, but letting air out through the opening). When we say /s/, we blow air out of the gap between our top and bottom teeth.
3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word desk. I’m going to stretch desk out in super slow motion and listen for my snake. Ddd-eee-sss-skkk. Slower: Ddd-ee-sssss-kk. There it was! I felt my teeth almost close and air leave the opening. I can hear the slithering snake in desk.
4. Let’s try a tickler tale (on chart). “Sarah’s snake slithers slowly”. Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. “Sssssarah’s ssssnake ssssslithers ssssslowly”. Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/s/ arah’s /s/ nake /s/ lithers /s/ lowly.
5. (Have students take out primary paper and pencil). We use letter S to spell /s/. Lowercase and capital S look like a snake. Let’s write the uppercase letter S. Start just below the rooftop. Start to make a curve to the left down to the fence to make a small c, then take it and curve it to the right below the fence, hitting the sidewalk, to make a backwards c. I want to see everybody’s s. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
Now let’s make a lowercase s: start just below the fence and make a curve to the right to make a small c. Then take it and curve it to the right to make a backwards c and touch the sidewalk.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /s/ in sun or moon? sick or well? say or hey? song or run? sit or walk? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Slither your snake if you hear /s/: The sassy bunny sat in the silly green garden to sniff the smelly flowers.
7. Show the word card SAT and model how to decide if it is sat or bat: The S tells me to pat my heartbeat, /s/, so this word is sss-at, sat. You try some: SOCK: sock or dock? SING: sing or ring? SUN: fun or sun? SAIL: jail or sail? SAW: saw or draw?
8. Say: "Pap, Sam, and then man get a pan with sap in it. Sam gets into the sap. Let’s find out what happens with Sam gets into the sap." We will read the book, and every time they hear the phoneme /s/, they will hiss like a snake and move their hands like a snake from step 1.
9. For assessment pass out the worksheet attached and crayons. Students are to complete the worksheet individually. Students are to complete tracing the letters and color the pictures of images that begin with S. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step 7.
Book:
https://www.readinga-z.com/book/decodable.php?id=5
Reference:
Bailey Burns, Hissing Like a Snake with the Letter “S”
https://sites.google.com/site/lessondesignsbaileyburns/el-design
Worksheet:
http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/learning-letters/s.htm
Horizons:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/horizons.html
