Emergent Literacy Lesson
This lesson is designed for teaching phoneme awareness and letter recognition
Emergent Literacy Design: Smile 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 (brushing teeth) 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.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Sally’s sticky sock smells sour"; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with SNOW, STOP, MEET, SLAM, RICH, and SAND; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /s/ .
​
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 the letter S. S looks like a snake, and /s/ sounds like a snake hissing.
2. Let's all smile /s/, /s/, /s/. [Pantomime smiling] Notice where your top teeth are? (Touching your bottom teeth). When we say /s/, we hold our tongue in our mouth and blow air between our teeth.
3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word daisy. I'm going to stretch daisy out in super slow motion and listen for my hissing sound. ddd-a-i-e-sss- y. Slower: ddda-a-a -ii- sss- y There it was! I felt my tongue touch my teeth and blow air. Hiss /s/ is in daisy.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Sally has a salad, a bowl of lettuce. The salad has sunflower seeds in it, but Sally did not want tomatoes. Now she wants dressing. Here’s our tickler: " Sally’s sticky sock smells sour." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /f/ at the beginning of the words. " Sssally’s sssticky sssock sssmells sssour." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/s/ ally’s /s/ ticky /s/ ock /s/ mells /s/ our.
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 on the fence. Start to make a little c up in the air, then continue curving it by making a backward c to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody'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 job or sad? stop or toe? on or fish? dust or drop? tall or short? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /s/ in some words. Smile if you hear /s/: The, snow, school, bug, song, squirrel, to, the, pink, shade.
7. Say: "Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a funny creature with four feathers growing right out of his head!" Read page 16, drawing out /s/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /s/. Ask them to make up a silly creature name like Skooter-skate-skys, or snuggle-ifs-snoo. Then 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 tells me to smile with my teeth, /s/, so this word is sss-ad, sad. You try some: SAY: say or lay? SAND: sand or band? SLOW: slow or blow? SONG: song or long? SEA: sea or tea?
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: Sarah Jane Brock, Fishing Frenzy. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/brockel.html. l Assessment worksheet: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonicsbeginningsounds/letter-f_WFQQT.pdf?up=1466611200
BY: ANDREA MEYER
