Rationale:  This lesson is intended to help students recognize the phoneme /sh/ in written and spoken language.  They will also be able to read and spell words that contain the phonemes /sh/.  I will teach this correspondence by using a letterbox lesson.

Materials: picture page (dog, cat, fish, ship, shoe) that I will make up, Elkonin boxes, letters (f, I, s, h, a, p, e, o, l, l,), decodable book ”Tish the fish” book, poster with “Shelley should go to the shops”, primary paper, and pencils.  Everyone in the class will have their own set of everything.

Procedures:
1. I will review the letters s and h.  Now I will talk about the letters together.  I will explain the sound they make when together.  I will explain that the /sh/ sound is like when a mom says, “shhh…the baby is sleeping.”  I want everyone to say /sh/ together. Good. When you made that sound what position were your teeth in.  Right, your teeth together.
2. “Now I am going to read the sentence on this poster.  Shelley should go to the shops.  (I will repeat it a couple of times).  Now I want you to say it. Good. Now lets break up the sentence sshhelley sshhould go to the sshhops.  How many times did we hear the /sh/ sound?  Three times. Good.
3. “Now I want to ask if you can pick the /sh/ between two different words.  When you hear the /sh/ sound, I want you to put your finger over your mouth. Ok. Do you hear /sh/ in shoe or sock? Flash or flood? Ship or boat? Good job.
4. “Ok, I want everyone to get their letters and Elkonian boxes out.  When I say a word, I want you to spell the word. (I will model before we begin). “For example if I have the word fish, I would pull out the f, I, s, and the h, and put them in a row”.  Spell dish, clash, ship, etc.  Great job everyone.  Now I am going to spell a word and then I want everyone to read it. (I will do individual words to different students).
5. “Now that we have learned about the /sh/ sound, I want everyone to get out their primary paper and pencil.  I want everyone to copy the sentence from our poster to get practice writing words with sh.  After you have copied that sentence, I would like for you to come up with one out of some different sh words”. (I will also have a picture page provided for extra help with this new sound).
6. “Ok, now I want everyone to get out your book “Tish the Fish”.  We will see many words in this book that make the /sh/ sounds. (While some of the class is writing their sentences and doing their worksheets) I will ask some students to come read to me individually)
7. Assessment: I will have a picture page for each student with the words (dog, cat, fish, ship, and shoe). Everyone will have to write the words on the line under the pictures.  They will circle the words with the /sh/ sound.

Reference:
The reading genie website
Murray, B.A. and Lesniak, T. (1999). The Letterbox Lesson: A hands-on approach to teaching decoding. The Reading Teacher, 43, 282-295.
 Cushman, Shelia. Tish the Fish. Educational Insight. 1990

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