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Ssspray Your Sssilly Ssstring With S

            Ssspray Your Sssilly Ssstring With S


Emergent Literacy Design

Janae Williams

Rationale: This lesson is designed to teach children in the emergent literacy stage of development how to identify the phoneme represented by the letter S, which is /s/. The objective is for students to learn to recognize words that say /s/ in spoken language by learning the meaningful analogy: Sssspray your Ssssilly Sssstring (hand motion: curve your index fingers, wiggle them up and down, and spray away), and the letter symbol S. Students will also practice writing uppercase and lowercase S’s, practice using phoneme awareness by identifying words that have /s/ in them during phonetic cue reading using rhyming words. Students will identify items that have /s/ in their names.


  •          Primary paper and pencils
  •          Construction paper: write out Sally sung the song super fast on the paper (one word per piece of paper) in capital, bold letters
  •          Whole puncher (use the whole puncher to punch a hole in each side of the paper)
  •          Yarn (after students complete the tongue twister activity use the yarn to string all of the sheets of construction paper together to have students practice    stretching the word string)
  •          Word cards for:

§  cop  §  soup  §  page  §  sock  §  snake  §  tore  §  flower

§  safe  §  sandal  §  bear  §  sun  §  son  §  ton  §  seal  §  deal

§  sand  §  land  §  lock  §  sock  §  slip  §  flip

  •         A copy of My “s” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure (Child’s World 2009)
  •          “S” item box: [include random items in the box; these items can be drawn paper items or any sort of inexpensive manipulative; make a basic record sheet to record scores]

o   an eraser  o   a marker  o   a sun  o   a cloud  o   a shoe

o   a dress  o   a snake  o   a rat  o    a rock  o   a top  o   a square  o   a triangle 


1. Say: All of the letters of our language make a special sound. These sounds are special because they are all different, with the exception of /c/ and /k/, and they all help us identify words. We make the sounds by moving our mouths in certain ways. Today we will learn how to move our mouths to make /s/. The letter S is the special symbol we use to spell words with /s/ in them. /s/ sounds like the sound you hear when you spray silly strings. If you’re a really good sprayer you can spray your silly string in a motion that makes the letter S.

2. Let’s pretend we’re at Honey Boo Boo’s birthday party, and we all have two cans of silly string. Hold your hands in the air, and bend both index fingers downward. Wiggling your fingers up and down say /s/, /s/, /s/. Now bend both index fingers down and hold it, say /ssss/. Notice that your bottom and top rows of teeth are touching, or almost touching, but that your lips are not touching. Your tongue is pressing against the back of your bottom teeth. If you hold your hand in front of your mouth as you make this sound you can feel a light breeze of air leaving your mouth.

3. You can always use your mouth to stretch a word to find a sound. Let me demonstrate how this works. My word is silly [write the word silly on the board]. I am going to find /s/ in the word silly by stretching in out in a very slow motion. Si-lly [write these spellings on the board as you stretch the word]. Now listen is as I say is slower: ssi-ll-y. Slower: sss-i-ll-y. I can hear my silly string spraying as I say silly. I also feel the air blowing between my teeth as my tongue pressed against the back of my teeth.

4. Now I want you to help me try to find /s/ in this tongue twister: Sally sung the song super fast [Line up the construction paper with each word on it along the board for the students to see. At the end of the tongue twister exercise string the words together using yarn, and have students practice stretching the word string]. We’re going to say: ”Sally sung the song super fast” altogether three times [complete task]. Now we’re going to say it again, but this time we’re going to stretch the /s/ that we hear in each word. “Sssally sssung the sssong sssuper fast!” [Great practice!]. This time we are going to break off /s/, if we hear it at the beginning of the word. “/S/-ally /s/-ung the /s/-ong /s/-uper fast!” Now say the tongue twister as fast as you can [ready, set, GO]. Faster! Faster! Faster!

5. Now we are going to practice writing the special symbol for /s/, the letter S. But first let’s practice making the letter S with our hands. Make a letter C with your thumb and index finger of your left hand. Now make a backwards C with your thumb and index finger of your right hand. Holding your two C’s, place the thumb of your left hand on top of the index finger of your right hand. This makes the letter symbol S. Now let’s take out our primary paper and practice our S’s. First we will write the lowercase S. We will write the letter S just as we practice making the hand symbol. Begin by making a small C, under the fence ending halfway above the sidewalk. Next curve back, making a backwards C touch the sidewalk. Use the can of silly string as your reinforces [say: when I make a silly S on your paper write nine more lowercase S’s]. After working with the lowercase letter S, we will practice the uppercase letter S. Begin by making a letter C that touches both the rooftop and the fence. Next curve back, making a backwards C from the fence to the sidewalk [say: when I make a silly S on your paper write nine more uppercase S’s].

6. Call on students and ask them to tell you whether they hear /s/ in certain given words. Say: Let’s see if you can watch my lips for /s/. Raise your hand if you know the answer. Cop or soup? Page or sock? Snake or tore? Flower or safe? Sandal or bear? Now I’m going to read you a sentence. Spray your silly string if when you hear /s/: The snake slithered so far up the sycamore tree she saw the sun.  

7. Next we will read My “s” Sound Box. Say: There is a little boy, who judging by the cover, looks like he may be a sailor. He has a box that he is going to fill with things that have /s/ in them. I wonder what he will find to put in his box. Can you guess what /s/ items he may put in his box? [Give students a chance to write a few predictions on primary paper, carefully monitoring their letter S writing] Let’s read and find out if we’re right!

8. Show SUN and model how to determine if the word is fun or sun. The letter symbol S tells us to listen for our silly string. Sound out the word that begins with the letter S, sss-un. Now it’s your turn: SON: son or ton? SEAL: deal or seal? SAND: land or sand?  SOCK: lock or sock? SLIP: slip or flip?

9. For assessment: Students will be called up individually to identify items in a box that have represent /s/. During this time the other students will work to complete their list of items that have /s/ in them that could have been in the little boy’s box.



Moncure, Jane Belk. My “s” Sound Box. Child’s World, 2009

Byers, Kathryn. “Popping P’s With Popcorn!”. http://www.auburn.edu/~klb0029/byersel.htm

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/  (several lesson design examples were viewed to get an idea of how to design a great lesson)

http://www.auburn.edu/~pvh0001/hawkinsEL.htm (when I saw this book title it went perfectly with my assessment idea)



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