Learn
about Snazzy Snake with S
Emergent
Literacy Design
Rationale:
This lesson will help children identify /s/, the phoneme represented by
S. Students will learn to recognize /s/ in spoken words by learning a
meaningful representation (hand gestures of a snake) and the letter
symbol S, practice finding /s/ in words, and applying phoneme awareness
with /s/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from
beginning letters.
Materials:
Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Snazzy snakes slither slowly and
softly”; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House,
1963); word cards with SO, SIX, SOCK, MOON, FORK, and SEE; assessment
worksheet identifying pictures with /s/: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/letters/s.shtml
Procedures:
1. Say: Our written language is a secret code with many letters. The
tricky part is learning what letters stand for the mouth moves to help
make the sounds that we say come out right. Today we are going to work
on spotting mouth moves to /s/. We spell /s/ with the letter S. S looks
like a snake, and /s/ sounds like what a snake would make.
2.
Let’s pretend your hand is a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. Move your wrist and
hand like a snake while making the sound. Notice
that both of your top and bottom teeth are touching, and your tongue
lays flat in your mouth, and you blow air through your teeth to make
the sound.
3.
Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word Boston. I’m going to
stretch Boston out in super slow motion and listen for my snake.
Bbb-oo-sss-tt-oo-n. There is was! Did you hear it? I felt my teeth
touch together and blow air. I can feel the snake /s/ in Boston.
4.
Let’s try a tongue twister [on chart]. “Snazzy snakes slither slowly
and softly.” Everybody way it three times with me together. Now say it
again, and this time stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words.
“Ssssnazzy sssnakes sssslither sssslowly and sssoftly.” Try again, and
this time break if off the word. /s/nazzy /s/ nake /s/ lither /s/ lowly
and /s/ oftly.
5.
[Have students take out primary paper and pencils]. We use letter S to
spell /s/. Capital letter S look like a snake and so does a lower case
S. Let’s write the lower case s. Start at the belt and go down to the
shoe in a curvy motion going left then to the right. Do not pick you
pencil up off the paper until you are done writing the letter s. Do the
same thing with the upper case but this time you are going to start at
the hat and then go down to the shoe in a curvy motion. I want to see
everybody’s Ss. After I put a star on it, I want you to make eleven
more just like it.
6.
Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear/s/ in
block or sock? f ix or six? Go or so? Like or bike? Star or Moon? Say:
Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some other words. Move
your hand like a snake if you hear /s/: The, soaking, wet, spider, saw,
stars, in, the, sky.
7.
Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a funny
creature whose name starts with a S. Can you guess?” Read the pages of
S, drawing out /s/. Ask students if they can think
of other words with /s/. Ask them to make up silly creature names like
snigger, siffer, sear. Then, have each student write their silly
creature name with invented spelling and draw a picture to show what it
might look like. Display work at the end.
8.
Show SO and model how to decide if it is SO or GO: S tells me to snake
my teeth /s/, so this word is sss-o, so. You try some six or fix? Meet
or soap? Rack or Sack? Sky or Moon?
9.
Assessment: distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the
partial spellings and color the pictures that begin
with S. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from
step #8.
References:
Brown,
Leah. "Sneaky Slimy Snake." http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/breakthroughs/brownel.html
Return to Project Index