Miss Katie's Reading Lessons
Sarah the Sassy Snake
Emergent Literacy Design
Katie Osborn
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 meaning related representation, or a sassy snake, and the letter /s/ in the phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from the beginning to the end.
Materials: Pencil and primary paper; chart with a tongue tickler, “Sarah saw snakes Saturday.” Printed words on cards for the students (list, sing, sat has, less, sleep); book Some Smug Slug by: Pamela Duncan Edwards and an assessment sheet with writing and pictures of images that display the /s/ sounds, some do and some do not.
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 are going to work on spotting the slithering snake s in words. We call it the sassy snake s because the sssss sound is the same hissing noise that snakes make. The letter s is also the same shape as a snake. We will now practice writing the letter s.
2. “Let’s make a snake sound together, ssssss, as we make this sound, let’s press our palms together and move our arms like a snake.” “We make the ssss sound, when we blow out air between our teeth closed together.” “Also, our tongues are touching the top of mouths and the back of our teeth.”
3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word snake. I am going to stretch out the sounds of the word snake, “Ssssss-nnn-a-a-a-a-ke.“ I felt my tongue touch the back of my teeth and felt the air blowing out of mouth.”
4. “Now lets try a tongue tickler. “[show the chart] “Sarah the snake is super sassy.” “Let’s all say it together now. As we do, we are going to stretch the /s/’s this time.” “Sssssssarah ssssaw sssssnakes sssssaturday.” “This time, we are going to break the /s/ off of the word, “S-arah s-aw s-nakes s-aturday.”
5. {Students will take out primary paper and pencil} We use letter S to spell /s/. The letter S looks like a snake. “To write a capital S we are going to start a little bit below the rooftop and make a c that goes to the fence. Then we are going to keep going with our pencil and make a backwards c that goes from the fence down to the sidewalk and back up just a little bit.” “Next, we are going to make a lower case s. This is like the capital letter S, but it is smaller.” Start by making the c a little below the fence and bring it down to make the backwards c at the sidewalk just like the capital S. Let’s write ten of each, upper case S and lower case s.
6. The teacher will now call on students to answer aloud and tell how they knew: “Do you hear /s/ in sit or fit? Stop or prop? Seal or drill? Mat or grass? Teacher: “ Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Slither your snake again with your hands together when you hear the /s/ sound: The, grass, is, green, across, the, street.
7. Say: “Now we are going to look at our letter /s/ book, Some Smug Slug. The smug slug keeps climbing the steep hill after many of his friends try and change his mind. Will he make it up the hill? Let’s read along and find out. Quietly make our snake motion when you read the words with the /s/ sound. After reading, allow the students to write an alternate ending to the story. Let them draw pictures that go along with it.
8. Show the word SIT and model how to decide if it is sit or fit: The s tells me to be like a snake ssss, so the correct word is sssss-i-t. It is now your turn to try some: SING: ding or sing? STAY: play or stay? STAND: brand or stand?
9. For student assessment, give each student a worksheet. Students are to complete the worksheet by coloring the pictures that start with the letter s. While the students work on the assessment worksheet, the teacher will work with each student separately to read the phonetic cues from the words list of step #8.
REFERENCES:
Edwards, Pamela Duncan. Some Smug Slug. HarperCollins. 1998.
Assessment worksheet:
http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/learning-letters/s.gif
Similar lesson design:
Sammy the Snake Says… Ssssss
https://sites.google.com/site/mshesterslessons/home/emergent-reader-lesson
