top of page

Sizzling Sausage with the Letter S

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emergent Literacy Design

Kaye Arnold

​

Rationale: This lesson will help students identify the phoneme /s/ to represent our letter S. Students will learn to understand and acknowledge /s/ in words by learning the sound analogy, like a sizzling sausage, and the letter symbol S. Children will also learn and practice finding /s/ in the readings and use phoneme awareness with /s/ in phonetic cue readings by differentiating between which words are rhyming and which are beginning letters.

 

Materials: primary paper and a pencil; chart with tongue tickler (“Sally Serves Some Super Spicy Sausage”); drawing paper and crayons (or markers); assessment worksheet with pictures starting with /s/ (in the link below); cards with words such as SIX, SOCK, SEAL, RAT, SIT, PAW; the book “Sid and Sam” by Laura Godwin (Harper Collins, 2008).

 

Procedures:

1. Say: Today, we are going to be learning about one of my favorite things to eat: SAUSAGE! This language is like our own secret code, and it is our job to crack this code. We spell /s/ with letter S. S looks like Conecuh sausage, and /s/ sounds like sizzling sausage. Sometimes when we make the sound of letters, our mouths move to make the sound. [Hand the student a mirror].

​

2. Say: Let’s pretend to sizzle sausage, /s/, /s/, /s/. [Pantomime cooking sausage]. What way does your mouth move when you say /s/? See where your teeth and tongue are? [Point to teeth]. When we say /s/, our tongue is pressed up against our gritted teeth, and we are blowing out air. Let’s use the mirror to practice the /s/ sound and learn our letter S.

​

3. Say: Let me show you how to find the /s/ sound in the word rest. I am going to stretch out the word rest in slow motion, and you listen for my sizzling sausage. Slow: Rrr-e-e-st. Slower: Rrrr-e-e-e-ssss-t. Did you hear the sizzling sausage sound for the letter S? I did! I felt my tongue press up against my gritted teeth and blow out air. The sizzling sausage /s/ is in the word nest.

​

4. Say: Let’s try my favorite tongue tickler from our chart. Sally is entering a sausage cooking contest. She wants to make her sausage the spiciest in the contest, so she makes it and serves it to our judges. Now, here’s our tongue tickler: “Sally Serves Some Super Spicy Sausage.” Let’s all say it three times together. Now, let’s say it again but we are going to stretch out the /s/ at the beginning of each word. Here we go: “Sss-ally Sss-erves Sss-ome Sss-uper Sss-picy Sss-au-sss-age”. Try it again, but this time break the /s/ off the word: “/s/ ally /s/ erves /s/ ome /s/ uper /s/ picy /s/ au /s/ age”.

​

5. [Take out primary paper and pencils]. Say: We use the letter S to make an /s/ sound. Both the lower- and upper-case S look like a thing of Conecuh sausage. [Show a comparison picture]. Now, I want us to try and write both lower- and upper-case letters. Now, to make the top of the S, we need to draw a letter C from rooftop to the fence. Then, we are going to make a backwards C from the fence to the sidewalk and connect the two C’s at the fence. For lowercase S, we do the same thing just a little bit smaller. When you finish, I want you to make a funny face, and I will come and check them off. Once I have checked them, I want you to do five more of each (five uppercase S’s & five lowercase S’s).

​

6. Call on students to answer and tell you how they knew: Do you hear /s/ in soft or hard? happy or sad? sweet or hot? less or more? lost or found? Say: Let’s do some more and see if you can spot the /s/ in some of these words. When you hear /s/, make the sizzling sausage noise! [Demonstrate sizzling sausage]. Here we go: and, safe, fun, fabulous, shorts, smart, make, great, time, smart.

​

7. Say: Let’s look at one of my favorite books: “Sid and Sam” by Laura Godwin! Godwin tells us about Sid and Sam and their love for singing. While we read, don’t forget to draw out the /s/ and make our sizzling sausage noise. [Read the book]. Can you think of any other words that start with /s/? Now, let’s take out some paper and our crayons or markers and I want you to draw a picture of your favorite character and give it the silliest name you can think of that starts with S. Once you finish, raise your hand, so I can hang it up!

​

8. [Get out cards]. Show the kids a card with the word SIX on it. Then, ask the kids to decide if the word is mix or six. Say: The S tells us that there is sizzling sausage, /s/, so this word is sss-ix, six. Take out a paper and a pencil and write down your answers to these next few questions. Here are some of you to try: SOCK: sock or mock? DEAL: seal or deal? RAT: rat or sat? SIT: sit or kit? PAW: paw or saw?

​

9. For our final assessment, give students the worksheet (linked below). Students must complete the worksheet and color in the pictures that start with the letter S. While students are completing the worksheet, call students up to read the cue words from the eighth step.

 

References:

Buck, Nola. Sid and Sam. Harper Collins, 2008. 

Bruce Murray, Brush Your Teeth with F.

http://webhome.auburn.edu/~murraba/murrayel.htm

Lily Stewart, Slithering Like a Snake with the Letter S.

https://lcs0050.wixsite.com/lessons/emergent-literacy

Assessment Worksheet:

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-s_WFNND.pdf

Graphic Image: 

https://hail.to/christ-the-king-school/article/9j2RSEH

​

Link back to Awakenings Index. 

images.jpg
bottom of page