Sally the
Slithering Snake
Emergent
Literacy
Rationale: This lesson is
to help students understand that letters stand for phonemes, and
spellings
create the phonemes in spoken words. Before children can learn to read,
they must
achieve reading phonemes. Before they read phonemes, they need to be
able to
identify them. This lesson focuses on the /s/ phoneme. This lesson will
allow students
to recognize /s/ in spoken words, they are able to write the letter s
appropriately
on primary paper, and they will be able to identify /s/ in printed
material.
Materials: Primary paper;
pencil; chart with "Sally the Snake likes to slither in the sun";
drawing
paper and crayons; illustrated snake picture card; Yuck Soup
book; picture
page with south, store, whale, hat,
snake, sink, truck, star, sun, and six (I will draw the picture
page).
Procedures: 1. Introduce the
lesson by explaining that we have many letters in the alphabet that
make many
different sounds and it is difficult learning what each letter says.
Today we
are going to learn about the letter s and the sound it makes.
2. Ask students: Have you ever seen
a snake? Have you ever seen a snake? Have you ever heard the sound they
make?
Well they make a /s/ sound when they feel they are in danger or sense
that
someone is close by them. Today we are going to learn how to make that
/s/
sound, so you can identify what words have this same sound. Now let's
all say /s/
and sound like a snake. (ssssssssss).
3. First, let's try a tongue twister
(on chart) "Sally the Snake likes to slither in the sun." Good, now
let's say it together three times. Great! Now this time when we say it
let's
say it slower and stretch the /s/ sounds that we here. Sssssally the
Sssssnake
likesssss to ssssslither in the ssssssun.
4. (Give the students a pencil and a
piece of primary paper.) Now that we have heard the /s/ sound in some
words, we
are going to practice writing the letter s.
(I will first model how to properly write the letter s.) I will tell
them to
form a c up in the air between the rooftop and the fence then swing
back. They will each write one s
on their paper and I will tell them that while they are doing
that I will be walking around and after I put a snake sticker on their
paper, then they will write 10 more just like it.
5. Now
that we have practiced writing the letter s and learning to identify the s sound, we are going to play a
game. I am going to read a sentence and if you hear the s sound, then I want you to hold up
your snake card. If you hear a word that doesn't have an s sound in it then I want you to
hold up the card with a question mark on it. (Say this sentence: Sally
the snake likes to slither in the sun; while saying it slowly stretch
out the words). For example, do you hear /s/ in moon or soon?
6. I
will read Yuck Soup
and talk about the story. After our grand conversation, I will read the
story again and ask the students to hold up their snake card when they
heard the s in a word.
7. To
assess the student, I will give them a picture page and get them to
color the pictures that have an s
sound.
References:
Leah Brown's 'Sneaky Slimy
Snake' http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/breakthroughs/brownel.html