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Emergent Literacy

Don’t Just Say it—Spray it!

By: Wendy Alley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rationale: Children need to understand phonemes in spoken and written language in order to develop successful reading skills. To begin this process students must make a connection between the spoken sounds of a letter and a vocal gesture. This lesson will help students identify/s/, the phoneme represented by S. Students will learn to recognize /s/ in spoken as well as written language by learning a gesture (hairspray spraying) that associates with the letter symbol S. They will also practice finding /s/ in spoken words and apply phoneme awareness with /s/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

 

Materials:

Primary paper (2 per student) and pencils

Poster with tongue twister, “Susan saved Sam some salty soup.”

Phonetic cue cards with the words: sob, bob, sick, lick, sand, hand, beat, seat

White board, or poster board to teach on (have primary paper lines already on the board or poster)

Assessment Worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/s-begins2.htm

Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Maybe a hairspray can to demonstrate it’s sound (not necessary).

 

Procedures: 1. Introduce the lesson by explaining that the English language in a secret code. Each letter is represented by a different mouth move. Say: “Today we are hairstylist and we are on the lookout for the hairspray bottle. It sounds like /s/ and is spelled with the letter S (write an ‘S’ on the board). The sound /s/ sounds like a hairspray bottle spraying, can you help me find the hairspray bottle?

 

2. What does a hairspray bottle sound like when you spray it? /s/, /s/, /s/ and what hand motion do we do when we spray our hair with hairspray? (Move your hand like you are spraying your hair). Now everyone do the sound and the hand movement of hairspray /s/. When you get ready to say the /s/ sound your teeth are pressed together, your tongue is behind your teeth, and your lips are open a little. When you say /s/ you make air go across the top of your tongue and out between your teeth. Let’s try it one more time /s/.

 

3. Let me show you how to find /s/ in the word sock. I'm going to stretch sock out in slow motion and listen for the hairspray. Sss-oo-ccck. A little slower, try it with me: Ssss-oooo-cccck. Did you hear the hairspray? Did you feel the air blow between your teeth? I can feel /s/, the hairspray sound, in sock.

 

4. Sam really wanted some salty soup, but he though Susan would eat it all, but when he got home he found that she saved him some.  I’ve made a tongue twister about Sam and Susan, a tongue twister is a sentence where most of the words start with the same letter, its tricky to say, but I think you can do it. Let's try a tongue twister about Sam and Susan (on poster). "Susan saved Sam some salty soup."  Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /S/ at the beginning of the words. "Ssssusan ssssaved Ssssam ssssome ssssalty ssssoup.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/S/usan /s/aved /S/am /s/ome /s/alty /s/oup.

 

5. Now take out a pencil and primary paper. (Explain how to use primary paper if it is their 1st time using it.) We are going to learn how to write the /s/ sound. It looks like a snake. First I will write on the board, then you will write on your paper. (Write “S” while explaining how) Start at the rooftop and curl around like a c but stop at the fence and circle back around with a tail and you should end on the sidewalk. Once you finish, show me and I’ll give you a sticker, after you get a sticker on your paper write nine more S’s just like that one.

 

6. Call on students to answer these questions. Do you hear /s/ in snake or bake? Moon or soon? Sound or found? Sarah or Hannah? Paper or staple?  Now everybody spray your hairspray if you hear /s/. Sister, forgot, her, sandwich, at, the, snack, stand.

 

7. Now we’re going to read Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. Have you ever seen the snow? Does snow have the /s/ sound in it? There are other words that has the /s/ sound in them in this book. Peter woke up one day and found snow on the ground, he went outside to play but some of the other kids wanted to have a snowball fight. What do you think happened to Peter? Will his friends cause him to join the snowball fight? Will he get mad? Listen for the /s/ sound as I read and if you hear it in a word spray your hairspray.

 

8. Show the phonetic cue card SIT and model how to decide if it is sit or mit: The S tells me to spray my hairspray, /s/, so this word is sss-i-t, sit. You try some: SOB: sob or bob? LICK: sick or lick? SAND: sand or hand? SEAT: beat or seat?

 

9. For assessment: now that we’ve learned about /s/ each student will find three things in the classroom that have the /s/ sound in their name. It can be a person, a book, something in your desk, or anything in the room. Students will use invented spelling to write the names of the objects they find (pictures of those objects are also acceptable). Student will be assessed through the invented spelling and they will complete the attached worksheet by coloring the words that start with the /s/ sound. “You will color the words that begin with the /s/ sound. If they do not begin with the /s/ sound DO NOT color the picture.”

 

Reference:

Lydia Hinshaw.  “S,s, s, Silly Snakes Say sssss”.

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/hinshawlEL.htm

 

Assessment Worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/s-begins2.htm

 

Keats, Ezra Jack. The Snowy Day. New York: Viking. 1962. Print.

 

Anna Choron. “Sssnake Talk”.

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/begin/choronel.html

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