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Emergent Literacy Design

Beware of the Snake's Hiss with S
by:
Maria Sellers

Rationale:

This lesson will help children to identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. Through learning the sound analogy for a “snake’s hiss” and the letter . They will be able to review and practice noticing /s/ in words and using becoming more phoneme aware with /s/ in phonetic cue reading.

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Materials:

            - Primary paper and pencil

            - Crayons and paper to draw on

            - Chart with the saying, “Sally sold seven sparkly shoes suddenly”

            - The book titled, My Five Senses (Akili).

            - Word cards with SING, CAT, SNIFF, SEE, SAND, HAT

            - Assessment worksheet for identifying pictures with /s/. (URL below).

Procedures:

  1. The alphabet is used in spelling every word we say and use in verbal communication. It is so important to recognize the sounds of the letters that make up the words we use. We speak words with our mouths and we also write down words on paper. Today we are going to practice using /s/ with our mouth. We spell /s/ with the letter S. S looks like a slithery snake, and S sounds like the noise a snake makes when it is mad; the snake goes “hiss”.

  2. Now pretend we are an angry snake, say, /s/, /s/, /s/. We need to wiggy our body with our arms tight beside us like a snake does when it moves, because snakes do not have arms or legs! Now we look like a squirmy snake! When we say /s/ we smile without closing our mouth completely and push our tongue towards the front of our mouth but without touching and blow air out.

  3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word last. Listen for the snake’s hiss,  Ll-a-a-sss-t. Now let’s say it slower Lll-a-a-a-sssssss-t. Now I hear the snake’s hiss! I knew when I smiled and heard the sound of the snake that was the /s/.

  4. Let’s try and tongue tickler. “Sally says she saw some shoes that sparkled so bright. Sometimes Sally buys shoes when they sparkle. She has so many pairs of shoes. (Here’s our tickler) Sally sold seven sparkly shoes suddenly” Repeat this three times together. This time listen closely for the /s/. Say the /s/ sound longer than the other sounds so that you recognize it. “Ssssally sssold ssseven sssparkly ssshoes sssuddenly”. Good! Now lets stop and break apart the /s/ from the rest of each word: “/s/ ally /s/ old /s/ even /s/ sparkly /s/ shoes /s/ suddenly”

  5. Now we will take out our primary paper and pencil. The letter S is used to spell out the sound /s/. Capital and lowercase S look like a slithering snake. The uppercase S is exactly the same as the lowercase expect the lowercase is a lot smaller. To draw the letter S, start at the top right and make a half dome going from right to left. Now cross it down towards the right bottom and make the bottom half of the dome going from right to left so that it looks like this: S. After I show you, I want each of you to copy mine and do it 10 more times.

  6. I am going to call on a few of you to answer these questions. Are you ready? Do you hear /s/ in sing or wind? Smile or chair? Paper or Sorry? Now let’s see if hear the hiss of a snake in /s/ in some words. Wiggle like a snake when you hear /s/: Told, Sun, House, Sleep, Door, Car, Salt, of, silky, funny, that, student.

  7. Say: Let’s look at a book to help with our letters in the alphabet. In the book, My Five Senses, Aliki tells us about our different senses and how we use them. On page 15-16 it says, “I do all this with my senses. I have five senses. When I see the sun or a frog or my baby sister, I use my sense of sight. I am seeing” (Aliki). When the use of /s/ is present on these pages draw out the sound of the letter S. Have the students repeat after you one by one, while doing a silly snake slither dance.

  8. Show the word SUN and explain to the students how to determine whether it is sun or won: The /s/ shows me that the snake is hissing “ssss”. Now you try: SIT: sit or hit? SAY? say or hay? SEED: seed or bead?

  9. For the final assessment, have the students do a listening game where the student listens to two words and determines which one has an /s/ and then they come up and tell you the word they hear. The worksheet will help them become familiar with the letter s.

References:

Aliki, My Five Senses. New York, NY: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015.

Mallory Kelley, Sally the Sneaky Snake.

Assessment worksheet: https://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=598905

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