Rationale: To learn to read, children must understand digraphs (letter combinations that make one sound).    This lesson is to help children recognize the phoneme /sh/ in written and spoken language and they will be able to read and spell words that contain the phoneme /sh/.  Students will learn this correspondence by learning a meaningful representation and reading and spelling with letterboxes.

Materials:

-       Elkonin boxes for each student

-       Letter manipulatives for each student

-       Sentence strip (Shelly and Shawn will shop for shirts after they share a shake)

-       Copy of A Crash in the Shed for each student

-       Worksheet (shave, shed, ship, fish, brush, splash)

-       Crayons

-       Pencil

Procedure:

1.     Today we are going to talk about how the letters s and h work together as a team to make on sound. (write sh on the board).  When we see sh together they say /sh/.  Letâs all say /sh/ together.

2.     /Sh/ is also what people say when they want someone to be quiet.  They usually put their finger to their lips when they say /sh/. Letâs all practice saying /sh/. (put finger to lips while saying /sh/).

3.     Now, letâs say a sentence (on chart).  Shelly and Shawn will shop for shirts after they share a shake.  Letâs say the sentence again and count how many time we hear /sh/. Letâs say it one more time, but this time letâs stretch out the /sh/.  Shhhelly and Shhhawn will shhhop for shhhirts after they shhhare a shhhake.

4.     Letâs take out our letterboxes and spell some words.  Remember that each letterbox is only one mouth move and when s and h say /sh/ they only use on letterbox.  Iâm going to spell the word ship for you.  Everybody follow along in their letterboxes while I spell ship on the board.  We will need three boxes for ship.  (Say ship out loud and break the sounds apart sh-i-p).  I hear /i/ in ship and I know that the letter i makes the /i/ sound.  So I will put i in the middle box. (Say the word and again breaking off the sounds).   I know that s and h say /sh/ so Iâm going to put both s and h in the first letter box since they only make on mouth move.  (Say again while breaking off sound).  P say /p/ so Iâll put a p in the last box. Ship.

5.     Okay not itâs your turn to spell some words.  We are still using three boxes.  Everyone spell the word (shop, dish, shape, brush, trash, short, splash) (After students have time to spell words, spell each word correctly on the board so students who need to make corrections can. Instruct the students to change the number of elkonin boxes when appropriate.)

6.     Today weâre going to read A Crash in the Shed.  This story is about Jan and Tim.  They are going to swim and fish.  Jan goes to inspect her shells on the shelf and her cat, Elf, jumps off and all the shells fall on the floor.  Letâs read the book and find out what Jan does.  Everyone will read with a partner.  Your partner will read one page and then you read on page.  When you are done, come and get a worksheet from me.

7.     For assessment give students a worksheet with picture and the words of each picture.  Have them match the picture with the word and then color the pictures with the /sh/ sounds.

References:

ãShhh· She Shouted.ä    www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/discov/hollowaybr.html

A Crash in the Shed. Geri Murray. www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/geniebooks.html

Murray, B. A.  & Lesnaik, T.  (1999). The Letterbox Lesson:  A hands-on approach to teaching decoding.  The Reading Teacher, 43, 282-295.

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