Keeping quiet with Sh…

Beth Davis

Emergent Literacy

Rationale:  This lesson will help children identify the /sh/, the phonemes represented by the letters S, and H. Students will learn to recognize /sh/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (Shhh…be quite, with fingers over mouth) and the letter symbol sh.  They will find /sh/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /sh/.

Materials: Primary paper and pencil; Chart with "Shelly shops for shoes and shirts"; drawing paper and crayons; word cards with SHOT, SHIP, WISH, RUSH,CRASH, and SPLOSH; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /sh/.

Procedures: 1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for, and how the mouth moves as we say words.  Today we are going to be working on spotting the mouth move /sh/. We spell /sh/ with the letters S, and H.  /Sh/ looks like the sound we hear when we see people coving their mouth's telling us to be quite.

2. Let's pretend to make the quite sound, /sh/, /sh/, /sh/.

3. Let me show you how to find /sh/ in the word ship. I'm going to stretch ship out in the super slow motion and listen for my Shh…be quite sound.  Sh- sh- i- p.

4. Let's try a tongue twister (on chart). "Shelly shops for shoes and shirts." Ok, now let's say it three times together.  Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /sh/ at the beginning of the words "Shhhelly shhhops for shhhoes and shhhirts."  Try it again, and this time break it off the word; "/Sh/elly  /sh/ops for /sh/oes and /sh/irts.

5. Have students take out the primary paper and pencils. We use the letters S and H to spell /sh/. S looks like a snake.  To make a capital S you are going to start at the snakes head and make his body curve.  You do the same thing to make a lower case s, just make sure it is a baby snake and it is a little bit smaller.  To make the lower case letter h you are going to draw a straight line down, then go across the bridge in the middle, and go down again. After you cross the bridge you will not go back up unless you are making a capital H.

6.  Ask the students to answer and tell me if they understand:  Do you hear /sh/ in hush? Sun? Show? Or Cant?

8. Show RASH and model how to decide if it makes the /sh/ sound or not.  I will tell them to say quite and put their finger over their mouths after reading each word.  Then they will be able to tell me if it makes the /sh/ sound.

9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings, and color the pictures that have /Sh/ in them.

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