Slither Like a Snake With S!

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 like a 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 "Sam sat in the sun singing silly songs"; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with SAT, SLIP, SEAT, SIKE, SACK, and SANG; 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 a silly slithering snake, and /s/ sounds like the hissing noise snakes make.

2. Let's pretend to be a snake, /s/, /s/, /s/. [Pantomime a slithering snake by dancing, moving entire body back and forth in a wavy motion] Notice where your top teeth are? (Touching lower lip). When we say /s/, we blow air out in between our top and bottom teeth.

3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word last. I'm going to stretch last out in super slow motion and listen for my hissing snake. Lll-a-a-ast. Slower: Lll-a-a-a-sss-t There it was! I felt my top and bottom teeth meet and blow air. Our hissing slithery snake /s/ is in last.

4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. “Sam sat in the sun singing a silly song.” Sam was super bored, and all of his friends were busy. It was a pretty day outside and he didn’t want it to waste away, so Sam decided to go outside and have fun all by himself. Here’s our tickler: "Sam sat in the sun singing silly songs" Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. "Sssam sssat in the sssun sssinging a sssilly sssong." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/s/ am /s/ at in the /s/ un /s/ inging a /s/ illy /s/ ong.”

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 letter s... Start just below the fence. First form a tiny cup in the air between the fence and the sidewalk, then swing back. I will come around to see everyone’s s. After I put a smile 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 stop or go? Slow or quick? Soft or hard? Nose or knee? List or chart? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Do our silly slithering snake dance if you hear /s/ in any of these words: spoon, lamp, best, win, slam, cart, sent, spring.

7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about how “Silly Sammy Slick sipped six sodas and got sick sick sick." Read page 44, drawing out /s/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /s/. Ask them to think of a silly flavor of Sammy’s soda that could start with s, such as slime soda or sour soda. Then have each student write their silly soda flavor in the blank “Silly Sammy Slick drank six ___ sodas and got sick sick sick.” and draw a picture of Sammy and their soda flavor. Display their work.

8. Show SAT and model how to decide if it is sat or cat: The S tells me to slither like a snake, /s/, so this word is sss-at, sat. You try some: SEAT: seat or meat? SLIP: slip or flip? SIKE: sike or like? SACK: sack or pack? SANG: sang or rang?

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students draw a line connecting the sailboat to the pictures that begin with s. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

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Reference:

Jordan Greenburg, Slither Like a Snake With s.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/brockel.html.l

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Assessment worksheet: https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/s-begins1.htm