Sami Moccia
Auburn University
Slimy, Slithering Snake S
An Emergent Literacy Design
By Sami Moccia
Rationale:
This lesson will help children identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. Students will learn to recognize phoneme, /s/, by learning a representation of a slithering snake and the letter symbol, S, practice finding /s/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /s/ in phonetic cue reading.
Materials:
-Primary paper
-Pencil
-Crayons
-Poster of “Sam the shy snake slithers through the soft sand”
-J. Gordon’s Six Sleepy Sheep (Puffin Books, 1991)
-Word cards with SAT, SAD, SEEM, and SEND
-Assessment worksheet
Procedures:
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Say: The alphabet is like a secret code. In order to read words, we have to learn what each letter stands for by learning the different sounds they can make. When we make the letter sounds, called phonemes, our mouth moves a certain way. Let’s look at the letter S. S looks and sounds like a slimy, slithery, snake. Watch my mouth as I make a snake sound like S. What shape does it make when I say /s/?
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Can you sound like a snake? Let’s do our best snake interpretation and put our hands together and slither them back and forth while sounding like the letter S. Do you notice how your mouth feels when you say /s/, /s/, /s/? Your lips are apart, but your teeth are together, and you blow air out between your top teeth and lower lip.
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Now, I’m going to see if I can hear /s/ in the word mask. I’m going to stretch out mask in very slow motion and listen for a slithering snake. Mmm-a-a-a-sss-k. Slower: Mmmmm-a-a-a-a-ssssssss-k. There it was! I felt my teeth touch and air blow past my bottom lip when I said /s/ in mask.
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Let’s try a tongue twister [see poster]. “Sam the shy snake slithers through the soft sand.” Everybody say it three times together. Let’s say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. “Sssssam the ssssshy sssssnake sssssslithers through the sssssoft sssssand.” Let’s say it one more time, and this time let’s say /s/ separately from the rest of the word: “/s/ am the /s/ hy /s/ nake /s/ lithers through the /s/ oft /s/and.”
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[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter S to spell /s/. Capital S looks like the daddy snake and lowercase S looks like the baby snake. Let’s draw the baby lowercase snake first. We’re going to put our pencil just below the fence and make a c. Then, we’re going to keep our pencil going and make a backwards c at the sidewalk. Now, let’s make the uppercase, daddy snake by starting with our pencil just below the rooftop and make a c that goes to the fence, just like before. Now, we’re going to keep drawing and make that backwards c that goes from the fence to the sidewalk. I’m going to walk around and see if everyone’s S’s look like snakes. While I’m doing that, I want you to work on writing 5 more uppercase S’s & 5 more lowercase S’s.
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Ask students if they hear /s/ sun or cloud. Sand or mud? Go or stop? First or third? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in these words. Slither your hands like a snake if you hear /s/: The, silly, slimy, snail, crawled, into, the, sunshine.
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Say: “Now we’re going to read an alphabet book about six sleepy sheep who try using /s/ to fall asleep. How in the world do they do that? [Read book]. So, how did the sheep use /s/ to help them fall asleep? They tried slurping soup, telling stories, singing, and what else? I want you to come up with one other way these sheep could try to fall asleep using the letter S and draw a picture describing it.
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Show SAD and model how to decide if it is sad or mad: The S tells me to slither like a snake /s/, so I know that this word is sss-a-a-a-d, sad. You try some: SAT: sat or mat?SEEM: seem or team? SEND: send or mend?
Assessment:
Students complete worksheet by coloring the pictures of objects that begin with S and practice writing the letter to complete the words.
References:
Gordon, J. (1991). Six sleepy sheep. New York: Puffin Books, 24.
Adapted from: “Sally the slithering snake” by Mary Beth Moss http://marybethmoss.wixsite.com/marybethmoss/emergent-literacy-
Adapted from: “Brush Your Teeth With F” by Bruce Murray http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html
Assessment Worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/s-begins2.htm
