Emergent Literacy Design

Rationale:

This lesson will help children to identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. Students will learn to recognize in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (slithering like 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 “Sara and Sam sit in the sand by the sea”; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with SIT, SAD, MEET, STAY, POUND, AND SIDE; 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/ sounds like a hissing snake slithering on the ground.

2. Let's pretend to slither like a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. [Undulate hands side to side like a snake] Notice where your tongue is? (Almost touching your top teeth). When we say /s/, we blow air between our top teeth and tongue.

3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word best. I'm going to stretch best out in super slow motion and listen for my slithering snake. Bbb-e-e-est. Slower: Bbb-e-e-e-sss-t There it was! I felt my tongue almost touch my top teeth and blow air. Slithering snake /s/ is in best.

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Sara and Sam are friends. They go to the beach together on a sunny day. At the beach they sit in the sand which is by the sea and play. Here’s our tickler: "Sara and Sam sit in the sand by the sea." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. "Sssara and Sssam sssit in the sssand by the sssea." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/S/ara and /S/ am /s/ it in the /s/and by the /s/ea.

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 right on the fence line. Make a little c up in the air, then make a backwards c halfway between the fence and the sidewalk. 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 soup or cake? slime or towel? buff or boss? trust or frog? vase or nine? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Slither your hands like a snake if you hear /s/: The, silly, super, bug, stayed, by long starry, snails.

7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a silly creature, Sammy, who is sipping a soda pop.” Read the “s” page, drawing out /s/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /s/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like Sippy-sap, or Son-Sir-Sang or a silly new soda name like stonny or sark. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature or new soda. Display their work.

8. Show SIT and model how to decide if it is sit or bit: The S tells me to slither like a snake, /s/, so this word is sss-it, sit. You try some: SAD: sad or mad? MEET: seat or meet? SOON: soon or moon? POUND: sound or pound? SIDE: tide or side?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with S. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

References:

Bailey Sartin, 2018, Making A Mess with “M”

https://sartinbailey27.wixsite.com/mysite/about

Worksheet: https://worksheetdigital.com/product/color-the-pictures-which-start-with-letter-s-worksheet/

Dr. Suess. (2015, May 21). Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing ALPHABET Book! song. YouTube. Retrieved September 22, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OExLhIxG2_I.

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