Emergent Literacy Design
Emergent Literacy Design: Hiss Like a Snake with S
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 (peen tending to be a 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: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “ Sam’s slimy snake slithers slowly”; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with SIT, SAY, SEAT, SORT, SAND, and SAVE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /s/.
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/ sounds like a snakes hiss.
2. Let's pretend to be a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. [Pantomime snake] Notice where your tongue is? (Behind your closed teeth). When we say /s/, we blow air between our teeth touching together. Our teeth are like a cage and our tongue is our snake, we need to keep our snake in the cage.
3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word rest. I'm going to pretend to rest and listen for my snake. Rrr-e-e-est. Slower: Rrr-e-e-e-sss-t There it was! I felt my teeth stay together and my tongue behind them and blow air. Snake /s/ is in rest.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Sam has a snake. The snake has scales. His scales are slimy. Because he is slimy, he can move in a slither. Sam likes that he moves slowly
Here’s our tickler: "Sam’s slimy 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. "Sssam’s ssslimy sssnake ssslithers ssslowly." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/s/ am’s /s/ limy /s/ nake /s/ lithers /s/ lowly.
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. Start just below the rooftop. Start to make a little c up in the air, then connect a backwards c underneath. I want to see everybody's s. 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 moonor sun? Sing or dance? See or hear? Less or more? Best or left? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Pretend to rest if you hear /s/: The, silly, soft, dog, sat, in, the, sun, while, sweating.
7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a boy named Sammy Slick who sipped six sodas!” Read page 44, drawing out /s/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /s/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like Silly Sammy Slick. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.
8. Show SAD and model how to decide if it is sad or mad: The Stells me to hiss like a snake, /s/, so this word is sss-ad, sad. You try some: SIX: six or mix? SNEAK: sneak or peak? SOCK: sock or lock? SICK: sick or lick? SAKE: sake or make?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with F. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.