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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 sound analogy (s-s-s slithering 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:
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Primary paper
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Pencil
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Chart that says “Sandy’s silly slithering snake is sneaky”
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Book: Sam and the Sap
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Notecards: sun, star, sit, snake, swing
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Worksheet
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Markers and/or crayons
Procedures:
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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 when we say words.”
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“Let's pretend to be a snake! We are going to hiss and move like a snake /s/, /s/, /s/. (Arms slithering like a snake). Notice where your teeth are? The bottom and top teeth are touching each other but letting air out. When we say /s/, we blow air between our teeth.” (pointing at mouth showing students how to say S).
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“Let me show you how to find our hissing snake /s/ in the word messy. I'm going to stretch messy out in super slow motion and listen for the hissing “s-s-s” sound that a snake makes. M-e-s-s-s-y. I felt my teeth touch each other and blow air out in between my teeth. Did you hear the hissing snake?”
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“Let's try a tongue tickler (on chart: Sandy’s silly slithering snake is sneaky). Our tickler tale is that Sandy the snake sticks her tongue out at her friends and makes silly faces. After she makes her silly faces she likes to hide from her friends and sneak up behind them. Here’s our tickler: “Sandy’s silly slithering snake is sneaky.” We are going to say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. “SSSandy’s sssilly ssslithering sssnake is sssneaky.” Now we are going to try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/Ssandy’s /s/illy /s/lithering /s/nake is /s/neaky.”
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“Now we are going to write letter S. Both the uppercase and lower letter s look like a snake. So let’s get out our primary paper and pencil and start writing S. Let’s write the uppercase letter S. Start in between the rooftop and the fence. Then make a curve to the left down to the fence and that should make a small c. Then let’s take it and curve it to the right and go below the fence, then hit the sidewalk, and this will make a backwards c. This produces the letter S.”
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Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: “Do you hear /s/ in star or moon? some or come? Stand or fall? Desk or chair? Chest or neck? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Slither and hiss like a snake when you hear /s/: The, sassy, snake, wanted, to, slither, to, see, the, sun.”
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"Let's look at our /s/ book. We will be reading Sam and the Sap. In this book, there is a man and Pap, and they get sap in a pan. Then comes a dog and he wants the sap. We will have to read to find out who gets the sap! Whenever we hear S I want you to move and hiss like a snake.”
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Show SUN and model how to decide if it is sun or fun: “The S tells me to hiss and slither like a snake. We hiss and slither like a snake when we hear the /s/ in s-s-sun. Now let’s try some more: is this STAR: star or bar? SIT: sit or fit? SNAKE: snake or cake? SWING: swing or ping?”
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For assessment, pass out the worksheet and markers/crayons. “For the assessment, we will do the What Begins with S? worksheet. We will work on this assignment individually. Color each picture that starts with a S and then practice writing S on the provided lines.” In the meantime, I will call on students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step 8.
References:
Murray, Bruce. “Brushing Your Teeth with F”
https://murraba.wixsite.com/lessondesigns2018/emergent-literacy
Book:
https://www.readinga-z.com/book/decodable.php?id=5
Worksheet:
https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/s-begins2.htm
Image:
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