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Hiss Like a Snake with S
By: Sydney Chapman

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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 (hissing 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 pencil; chart with "Sarah’s snake sings slow songs"; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with SIT, HIT, STOP, DROP, SONG, LONG, SUNNY, FUNNY, SWEAT, and THREAT; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /s/ (URL below).

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Procedures:

1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves we make as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /s/. We spell /s/ with letter S. S looks like snake, and /s/ sounds like a snake hissing.

2. Let's pretend to hiss like a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. [Pantomime slithering hands] Notice where your tongue is? (Touching the roof of your mouth). When we say /s/, we blow air between out of mouth while tongue is touching the roof of mouth.

3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word west. I'm going to stretch west out in super slow motion and listen for the hissing snake. Ww-ee-ss-t. Slower: Www-e-e-e-sss-t There it was! I felt my tongue touch the roof of my mouth and air blows out. Hissing snake /s/ is in west.

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Sarah has a snake, a long animal that slithers to move. The snake sings lots of songs, but he sings them a little differently. He sings them slowly. Here’s our tickler: " Sarah’s snake sings slow songs." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. " Sssarah’s sssnake sssings ssslow sssongs." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/s/arah’s /s/nake /s/ings /s/low /s/ongs”

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter S to spell /s/. Capital S looks like a snake. Let's write the lowercase letter s. Start just below the fence. Start to make a little curl, like a c halfway to the sidewalk and then make another little curl, like a c, but backwards. I want to see everybody's s. After I put a star on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /s/ in sun or fork? Singer or runner? cross or off? Sit or lay? Stiff or hurt? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Move your hands like a snake (demonstrate for them) if you hear /s/: The, sweet, grasshopper, hopped, to, the, smelly, swamp.

7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a silly little boy who drinks lots of soda!" Read page 38, drawing out /s/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /s/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like Sillo-sur-sef, or Shaggy-servo-saur. Then have each student write their silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.

8. Show SIT and model how to decide if it is SIT or HIT: The S tells me to hiss like a snake, /s/, so this word is sss-i-t, sit. You try some: STOP: stop or drop? SONG: song or long? SUNNY: sunny or funny? SWEAT: sweat or threat?

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 #8.

 

Reference: https://kmm0093.wixsite.com/missmacdesigns/beginning-reader

Book: http://msbrosius.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/9/7/37974241/lt_10.3_dr_suess_abc.pdf/

Assessment sheet: https://free4classrooms.com/free-beginning-sounds-worksheet-letter-s/

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