Sh, Sh, It's Sheila the Shark!
Beginning
Reading Design
Rationale:
In order for children to become fluent readers, they must understand that
letters represent phonemes, which are the vocal gestures they hear in words.
Phonemes can be represented by one letter or a combination of letters.
When a combination of letters makes a single sound, it is called a
digraph. The purpose of this lesson
is to help students understand that two letters put together can make one sound.
In this lesson, children will learn that when
s and
h are put together, it forms the
sound /sh/ by recognizing /sh/ in spoken words, doing letterbox lessons, and
reading The Crash in the Shed.
Materials:
Class
copies of The Crash in the Shed
Poster
with tongue tickler: Sheila the shark shops for shells by the ships.
Elkonin
boxes for each student
Letters
for each student dash, stop, hat, cash, sheep (d,a,s,h,t,o,p,e,e,c)
Board-sized Elkonin box and letters for teacher to model letterbox lesson in
front of class
Handouts
for the class with various pictures that have the /sh/ sound (fish, mesh, cat,
ash, shells, ship) The words will be listed in the right column and the pictures
listed in the left column (mixed up) and the students will draw lines connecting
the correct word to the correct picture.
Procedures:
1.
Sometimes two letters put together can make one sound.
Today, we will put together the letters
s and
h, which makes the /sh/ sound.
(Teacher writes sh on the board.)
2. Pretend
we are on a big ship and we jump in the water to find sea shells, when all of a
sudden we see a big fin heading our way. (Teacher puts hands in the shape of a
fin on her head and repeats the /sh/ sound.)
What could it be? It's
Sheila the friendly shark! She has
come to help us learn to identify words that contain the /sh/ sound.
Did you notice that "Sheila" and "shark" both start with what sound?
Yes, /sh/, that's exactly right!
Now everyone put your hands on your head in a triangle like this and say,
"Shhhhhhhhhhhh shhhhhhh shhhhhhh" like you are a shark swimming through the sea.
(Teacher models shark hand gesture and mouth movement.) Very good!
3. Now,
let's look at our tongue tickler on the poser board: "Sheila the shark shops for
shells". I am going to say it very
slowly, and everyone look and listen for the /sh/ sound.
When you hear the /sh/ sound, make your hands like a shark.
Very nice! Let's stretch it
out together and make our hand gesture when we hear the /sh/ sound. (Teacher
points to words while saying the tongue tickler with the class.) Great job
everyone!
4. Now I
want to see how well you can recognize the /sh/ sound in words.
Do you hear /sh/ in slow or rush?
Whisper or shout? Malt or
shake? Dish or bowl?
Great job everyone!
5. Now
everyone take out their letterboxes and letters.
Remember that each box stands for one sound, so when letters are teamed
up, like s and
h, they only get one box.
I am going to show you how to spell the word
ship in your letterboxes. (Teacher
slowly sounds out ship.) The first sound I hear is /sh/ so I will put the
letters s and
h in the first box. (Teacher models
how to spell ship.) Let's spell some words in our letterboxes: dash, stop, hat,
cash, sheep. (After teacher says each word, she walks around to make sure
students are spelling the words correctly.) Now, let's read the words we spelled
in our letterboxes. (Teacher writes the word dash on the board and models
reading it (the same way she did ship
earlier) by sounding out each phoneme, /d/a/sh/, and continues to do this with
the rest of the words with the class all together.)
6. You all
are doing such a great job, and I think you have this down!
I would like everyone to get with a partner and buddy read
The Crash in the Shed together.
Ben and Jess can't make up their minds whether to fish or collect shells.
Suddenly they hear a crash in the shed.
Sounds like trouble! You and
your partner have to read together to find out what happens to Ben and Jess!
After reading, get students back together and ask them what words they
noticed had the /sh/ sound and write them on the board.
Ask students if they can think of any other words with the /sh/ sound and
write them also.
7. I am
going to pass out a worksheet with some pictures on it in one column and words
in the other column; I want you to draw a line from the correct word to its
correct picture. (Have students turn them in and review for assessment.)
References:
Kendrick,
Lauren. "Ssshhopping for Ssshhells" Auburn University Reading Genie Website,
2005.
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/mcintoshbr.html
Murray,
B.A. and Lesniak, T. (1999). "The Letterbox Lesson: A hands on approach for
teaching decoding." The Reading Teacher,
52, 644-650.
Murray,
Geri. The Crash in the Shed. Reading
Genie Collection, 2006.
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