Emergent Literacy Design: The Snake says Sssssss
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Rationale: This lesson children will identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. Students will learn a sound analogy (a hissing snake) to recognize /s/ in spoken words and the letter symbol S. They will practice finding /s/ in words and apply phoneme awareness with /s/ in phonetic cue reading. They will do this by differentiating rhyming words from beginning letters.
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Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Sally sold salsa at the salon”; plastic mixed beads, pipe cleaners, mini googley eyes, Elmer’s glue; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with SAD, SOCK, BOOK, STAR, COB, and SHAKE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures and letters with /s/ (URL below)
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Procedures:
1.Say: Learning about our written language is fun and tricky. We are going to learn what letters stand for! Our mouth moves different ways as we say words and letters. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move of /s/. We spell /s/ with letter S. The letter S looks like a snake and /s/ sounds like a snake hissing!
2. Let’s pretend to be a snake and hiss, /s/, /s/, /s/ [Pantomime moving our head like a hissing snake] Do you feel how your bottom and top teeth are touching? When we say /s/, our bottom and top teeth touch and blow air out between them.
3. I am going to show you how to find /s/ in the word sun. First, I am going to say sun super slow and listen for the snake hissing in the word. Sss-u-u-u-nnn. Now I am going to say it even slower; Sssss-u-u-u-nnn. Did you hear the hissing snake at the beginning? I felt my bottom and top touch teeth touch and blow out air. Hissing snake /s/ is in sun.
4. Now we are going to do a fun tongue tickler [on chart]! Sally made her famous salsa on a sunny afternoon. Sally realized she had to go to the salon for a haircut on this sunny afternoon. Sally decided she would sell her salsa at the salon. Here is our tongue tickler: “Sally sold salsa at the salon.” Let’s all say it three times together! Now we are going to say it again and stretch out the /s/ at the beginning of the words. As we do this, we are making the pantomime hissing snake movement. “Sssally sssold sssalsssa at the sssalon”. Now this time we are going to break off the /s/ with the words: “/s/ ally /s/ old /s/ al /s/ a at the /s/ alon.”
5. [Pass out primary paper and pencils to students]. We use letter S to spell /s/. Capital S looks like a snake. Lowercase s looks like a snake too. We are going to write the lowercase letter s. On our primary paper we are going to start at the fence and draw a little c and then curve the c around to make an upside-down little c at the sidewalk. I am going to walk around and look at everybody’s s! Once I put a star on your paper, I want you to make ten more just like it!
6. Say: Now class I am going to say some words. You tell me if you hear /s/ in the word and how you knew if /s/ was in the word. Please raise your hand and I will call on you to answer. Do you hear /s/ in: sea or land? Dip or chips? Sock or mop? Dog or sob? Say: Now let’s spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Move your head like a hissing snake if you hear /s/ in a word: hop, butterfly, sand, professor, forward, back, super, and sack.
7. Say: Now class we are going to look at a fun alphabet book by Dr. Seuss. The book tells us about a boy named Sammy who drank too many sodas! We are going to read page 44 and 45 and stretch out /s/. I will then ask my students if they can think of words with the letter /s/. Then I am going to ask them to think of foods that they love to eat with the letter /s/. I will go around the room and ask each student to share their favorite food that has the letter /s/.
8. Next we are going to do a fun craft to remember /s/. I will pass out plastic beads, pipe cleaners, glue, and mini googley eyes. Students will string their pipe cleaner with beads to make a fun design or pattern. Then at the top and bottom of their pipe cleaner they will leave room for a tail and a head. They will glue googley eyes on the head. Once they are finished, we are going to take the pipe cleaner to form a snake and make it look like a S. Students will have their pipe cleaner snake to help them remember S and what sound it makes.
9. Using the word cards I am going to model the letter /s/. I am going to show SAD. Is it sad or mad? The S looks like a snake so I know it will sound like a hissing snake /s/. So, this word is Ssss-ad. SAD. Then students will try on their own. SOCK: sock or lock? BOOK: book or look? STAR: star or bar? COB: cob or sob? SHAKE: shake or bake?
10. Assessment: I will call on students to read the phonetic cues from step #9. Then I will pass out the worksheet and we will go over the worksheet once they have completed it.
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Reference: Lexie Motes, Hiss Like a Snake with S. https://lmotes0053.wixsite.com/mysite/emergent-literacy
Assessment worksheet:
https://www.daycareworksheets.com/beginning-sounds-s-phonics-worksheet/
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