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 sound analogy (slithering snake) and the letter symbol S, practice finding /s/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /s/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

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Materials: Primary paper and pencils; chart with “Sam’s slippery snake slithers so swiftly”; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with SAT, SAME, SAD, SLIP, LIKE, and FEAR; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /s/ (URL below).

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Procedures:

1. Say, “Our language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for – the mouth moves in a certain way to make different words. Today we are going to work on watching the mouth move /s/. We spell /s/ with the letter S. S looks like a slithering snake, and /s/ sounds like when a snake hisses as it slithers.

2. Let’s pretend to slither like a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. [Pantomime arms moving like a snake] Notice where your tongue is? (Resting behind front teeth but not touching them, sides of tongue slightly touching roof of mouth). When we say /s/, we blow air out between our tongue and the roof of our mouth, when the sides of our tongue touch the roof of our mouth.

3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word nest. I am going to stretch nest out in super slow motion and listen for my slithering snake. Nn-eee-est. Slower: Nnn-eee-sss-t. There it was! I felt my tongue touch the sides of the roof of my mouth and the air blowing. Slithering /s/ is in nest.

4. Lets try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Sam has a snake. His snake has slippery scales, so he can slide and slither around. Sam’s snake can slither very swiftly. Here’s our tickler: “Sam’s slippery snake slithers so swiftly.” Everybody say it, three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. “Ssssam’s ssslippery sssnake ssslithers ssso sssswiftly.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/s/ am’s /s/ lippery /s/ nake /s/ lithers /s/ o /s/ wiftly.

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter S to spell /s/. Capital S looks like a slithering snake. Let’s write the lowercase s. Start at the top and make a small c for the snake’s head, then go down and around to make a small swoop to make the snake’s tail. I want to see everybody’s s. After I put a sticker on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

6. Call on students to answer and tell out how they knew. Do you hear /s/ in: sun or cloud? Sky or ground? Sit or chair? Pest or bug? Gas or air? Moss or tree? Say: let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Slither your snake if you hear /s/. My, silly, dog, sits, on, her, side, in, the, grass.

7. Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a silly boy who drank six sodas, and felt sick!” Read pages 44 and 45, drawing out /s/. Ask the children if they can think of other words with /s/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like, slippery sloothy slop or swiggity swaggity swiss. The have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.

8. Show SAD and model how to decide if it is sad or mad: The S shows me our slithery snake, /s/, so this word is sss-ad, sad. You try some: SIT: sit or pit? STAR: star or car? SET: set or wet? SOLE: sole or mole?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with S. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step number 8.

Reference: https://sites.google.com/site/ctrd3710site/home/emergent-literacy-design

Assessment worksheet: https://supersimple.com/free-printables/letter-recognition-phonics-worksheet-s-uppercase/

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