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SSSS Goes the Snake

An Emergent Literacy Lesson

 

 

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. b Students will learn to recognize /s/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (‘sss’ sound a snake makes) 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 “Seven Starving Snakes Sucked down Sausage,”  Silly Sally by: Audrey Wood (Big Book); word cards SNAKE, SIT, SAT, TAKE, FIST, ZOO, SAM;; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /s/ (URL below).

 

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're going to work on spotting the mouth move /s/. We spell /s/ with letter S. S looks like a snake, and /s/ is the sound a snake makes.

 

2. Let's pretend to hiss like a snake,  /s/, /s/, /s/. [Pantomime hissing] 

 

3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word soon. I'm going to stretch lose out in super slow motion and listen for my “hissing” SSS-ooo-nnn. Slower: SSS-ooo-nnn. There it was! I felt my teeth touching together and my tounge touching the roof of my mouth. I can feel the hissing /s/ in soon.

 

4. Let's try a tongue twister [on chart]. "Seven Starving Snakes Sucked down Sausage " Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. "Ssssseven sssstarving ssssnakes ssssucked down ssssausage." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/s/even /s/tarving /s/nakes /s/ucked /s/ausage.

 

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter S to spell /s/. Capital S looks like a snake. Let's write the lowercase letter s. when writing letter S start at the rooftop, make a curve, slide down the fence and scoop up the sidewalk. For small letter s, start at the fence and swoop up, slide down to the sidewalk and scoop up the sausage.After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

 

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /s/ in work or sun? supper or top? Side or off? Lose or win? Stiff or back? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Hiss like a snake if you hear S: The, scared, snake, slithered, away, from, the, scary, alligator.

 

7. Book talk:  Silly Sally is a crazy girl.  She does a crazy thing as she walks into town.  Some of her animal friends join her in her silly walk to town.  I wonder what the town’s people are going to think about her silly self.  Let’s read and find out how silly Sally is.  I will proceed to read the story one time through discussing the important details of the story.

 

8. Show SIT and model how to decide if it is sit or fit: The S tells me to hiss, /s/, so this word is ssss-it, sit. You try some: SAT: sat or mat? SUN: sun or fun? SITTER: sitter or hitter? SLUSH: slush or flush? SAD: sad or mad?

 

9. Assessment: The assessment is going to be an activity that the students will do individually.  The students will be given a piece of paper with the /s/ words and a clip art picture on it.  The student will circle the /s/ word (sand, sit, sad, nest, etc.).  My student will receive a star sticker once the activity is comleted.

 

Reference: 

 - Wood, Audrey. Silly Sally. New York, NY. Scholastic Inc, 1992. 32 pages.

 

Megan Killenel, Ride Your Motorcycle With M

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/killenel.html

 

 

 

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bjr0009@auburn.edu

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