Meredith Pedersen



I. Rationale:
To learn to read and spell words, children need the alphabetic insight that letters stand for phonemes and spellings map out the phonemes in spoken words. Research shows that letter knowledge is one of the best predictors of reading success. This lesson will help children identify the letters s and h, along with the sound correspondence /sh/. They will learn to recognize /sh/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation and a letter symbol, and then practice spelling /sh/ in different words.

II. Materials

  • Primary paper & pencil
  • Chart with ãShelia shops for sheep, shells and shrimp.ä
  • Sheep on a Ship by Nancy E. Shaw
  • Elkonian letterboxes and letter tiles: s, h, e, a, w, i, o, p, m, f, t (1 set for each student)
  • Picture cards of the following: fish, cat, box, sheep, shrimp, tree

III. Procedures
1. Introduce the lesson by explaining that our written language is a secret code and that we must learn what the letters stand for. These letters can stand for different movements we make with our mouths. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /sh/. Does anyone know what sound s makes? What about h? Very good! When s and h are put together, they can make a new, special sound. Letâs practice making that sound together. Ssssssshhhhh...

2. Has anyone ever told you to be quiet when youâre being to noisy? Sometimes they might make our new sh sound by saying /sh/. Like this, sssssssshhhh! Letâs hold our finger up to our lips so we can remember the sound. Do you feel air coming out? That is what we should feel when making the /sh/ sound.

3. Now letâs try a tongue twister [refer to chart]. ãShelia shops for sheep, shells, and shrimp.ä Everyone, letâs say it together two times. Now letâs do it again, but this time stretch out the /sh/ sounds. ãSsssssshhhhhhelia ssssssshhhhhhops for sssssssshhhhhhhhhheep, ssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhells, and sssssssssssssshhhhhhhhrimp.ä Nice work!

4. Ask students to take out their primary paper and pencils. "Now we are going to use the letters and s and h. Letâs begin! To make an s, make a little c and swing back. Great! Practice that 3 more times, everyone. Now letâs try making the letter h. Weâll start at the rooftop, come down, and hump over. Write that 3 more times as well. When you finish that, write s and h together 6 times. Keep in mind that when we write s and h together, the letters make the /sh/ sound!"

5. Now that we know a little bit more about sh and the /sh/ sound, weâre going to do a little game by practice spelling some sh words in our letterboxes!! Iâll show you how to make one of these words. The word I am thinking of is shop. First I need to find the vowel in this word. I hear /o/, so thatâs the letter o. Now we need to figure out the beginning of the word. Sh-op· I think I hear /sh/ at the beginning, and remember that sh makes that sound from putting my finger to my mouth when I want someone to be quiet. So now we have sh and o. Letâs find the end of this word! Sh-o-p· I think I hear /p/ at the end, so that would be the letter p. Sh-o-p· shop. The word is shop. Now I want you to try!

6. Children will make the following words in their letter boxes with letter tiles:

  • 2 phonemes: she, ash
  • 3 phonemes: wish, shop, mesh, fish, ship
  • 4 phonemes: shift
  • Letters used: s, h, e, a, w, i, o, p, m, f, t
7. "Everyone did a great job on their letterbox lesson! Now weâre going to read a book called Sheep on a Ship. Every time you hear our /sh/ sound, I want you to hold your finger up to your lips like youâre hushing someone to be quiet. After reading, weâll talk about some of the different /sh/ words we hear and write them on the board. 8. Use observation in the letterbox lesson as an assessment." The main goal for each student is for them to be spelling the words using the sh for the sh = /sh/ correspondence. In addition, hold up the different picture cards and ask students to make their finger-to-lips gesture if they hear /sh/ in the word.

IV. References

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