Slithering Sammy
Rational: It is important for children to learn phonemes so they can become systematic explicit readers. This lesson is designed to help children recognize the phoneme /s/ is language. The students will learn to recognizes /s/ in spoken words by learning a meaning representation (a hairspray bottle.) They will practice finding the phoneme /s/ through use of their phoneme awareness by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters (rock, sock)
Materials: Primary paper, sheet "Sam said he was sorry he put salt in Sally"s sandwich; word cards with the words Sam, sorry, sock, rock, sand, Picture of snake, printed words, Book "Swine Lake".
Procedures:
Our written language can be tricky so we have to find ways to learn what the letters stand for. Today we will be working on the sound /s/ like our tongue tickler, "Sammy the snake slitters in the sand". We show the sound /s/ with the letter s. The letter looks like a snake, and sounds like a hissing snake.
Let"s pretend we are Sammy the Snake. Use your hand and arm to make a slithering motion, /s/ /s/ /s/. Notice what your mouth is doing. Your lips are slightly apart and your touch is touching the rough of your moth behind your teeth.
Now I am going to show you how to find the /s/ in the word case. I am going to stretch case out so that you can listen for /s/. Listen very closely. CCC-aaa-sss-e. Did you hear it? Cccc-aaaa-ssss-eee. There it was. I heard the slithering snake in the word case. What about the word bag? Do you hear a /s/ in the word bad? No but you do hear it in the word sag.
Now let's try a tongue tickler with the letter s. I have the sentence printed here on the chart. I want you to follow along with me as I read the sentence. "Sally the snake slithers in the sand" . "Sally the snake slithers in the sand". Now say it with me. Now say it three times together.
Now I need you all to take out your primary paper and a pencil so that we can practice writing the letter s. Remember that we use the letter s to spell /s/. And remember that the letter s looks like a snake and sounds like s snake. Now let's practice writing a lowercase s . Start just below the fence. Now curve up so that your pencil meets the fence. Curve it out and bring it back around so that the bottom of the s rests on the sidewalk. I am going to come around the room and look at your s.
Call on students to answer the following questions": do you hear /s/ in sock or glove. Sand or dirt? Sun or planet.
We are going to read a book called "Swine Lake". This will give us practice reading the letter s.
Show soon and ask students to decide if the word is soon or moon. The s tells me that it is a slithering snake, so this word is ssss-ock.
I will asses the students based on their participation on the activity listed above.
Reference:
Griffin, Meg. "Sally the Snake" http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/realizations/griffinel.htm
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