The Slithering Snake Goes, "SSSS"
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Emergent Literacy Design
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Rationale: This lesson will help a child to identify the phoneme /s/, a sound that is represented by the letter S. Working through the lesson will enable the student to recognize the phoneme /s/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (the slithering snake goes ‘ssss’) and the slithering snake hand motion. Students will also learn to distinguish the letter /s/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials:
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Primary paper and pencil
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Chart with the tongue tickler, “Do slithering snakes slink slyly through the snow?”
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Word cards with SAT, SNEAK, FEEL, STAKE, and GAME
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The book, Some Smug Slug by: Pamela Duncan Edwards
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Assessment sheet with the letter S that helps the students identify the /s/ in words
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Paper and crayons
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 the curving body of a slithering snake, and /s/ sounds like a snake hissing.
2. Let’s pretend to hiss like a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. Notice how your teeth are touching! Can you feel your tongue barely touching the upper sides of your teeth? When we say /s/ we blow air through the cracks in our teeth. Now, when you make the /s/ sound press your hands together and draw a snake slithering in the air. Do you see how you’re slithering your snake? We’re going to make our slithering snake hand motion whenever we hear the /s/ sound during the lesson.
3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word hiss. I am going to say the word very slowly and see if I can find the slithering snake S. Hhh-i-sss. Slower: Hhh-i-i-i-sss. There it was! I felt my teeth touch together, my tongue touch my teeth, and I blew air through my front teeth.
4. Now let’s try a tongue tickler [take out the chart]. “Do slithering snakes slink slyly through the snow?” Now, let’s all say it together! This time let’s stretch out the /s/ sound. “Do sssslithering ssssnakes sssslink sssslyly through the ssssnow?” Let’s try it again, this time break off the slithering snake at the beginning of the word: “Do /s/lithering /s/nakes /s/link /s/lyly through the /s/now?”
5. [Give the student the primary paper and pencil] Say: To write a capital S we are going to start a little bit below the rooftop of the paper and make a ‘c’ that curves around to the top of the fence. Then we are going to keep going with our pencil and make a backwards ‘c’ that goes from the fence, curves down to the sidewalk and back up a little to make a tail. Doesn’t the capitol S look like a snake? The lower case s is just like the capital s except smaller. To write a lower case s, start at the bottom of the fence and make the same ‘c’ that you made earlier and then keep going with your pencil and make a backwards ‘c’ that hits the side walk and then curves up to make a tail. [Have the students repeat the process on primary paper 10 times]
6. Now, the teacher will call on the students and have them answer the following questions: Do you hear /s/ in slime or climb? Do you hear /s/ in night or sight? In stop or drop? In still or drill? Now let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Draw your snake with your hands when you hear the /s/ in the words: The, sky, moves, desk, class, water, new, slide.
7. Booktalk: Now let’s read our /s/ book, Some Smug Slug. In this book, the smug slug climbs up a hill. Many of his friends try to warn him that climbing the hill might not be all that it seems. Will the slug listen to his friends or will he smugly climb the hill? Let’s find out! Ask the student to make a slithering snake motion whenever they hear the /s/ sound. After reading the book use primary paper and have the students use invented spelling to recall all of the animals from the book that they can that have the /s/ sound in their name. Then have them drawl their favorite /s/ animal using the paper and crayons.
8. Show the word SOB and model how to decide if it sob or bob: The S tells me to slither my snake, /s/, so this word is sss-ob, sob. Now you try some! Six or mix? Slide or hide? Take or sake? Sitter or hitter?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet children are to identify the words that begin with S. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
References:
Reading Genie Website: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/Entries.html
Malorie Hester, Sammy the Snake Says… Ssssss
https://sites.google.com/site/mshesterslessons/home/emergent-reader-lesson
Assessment: http://www.kidzone.ws/images-changed/kindergarten/s-as-begins1.gif
