Let's Learn to Read!
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
