Week 29, lesson 4 Phoneme "s,ss,sc,c" - Phonics Phase 5, unit 3 - Lesson plan

In the fourth lesson of Week 29, students continue their exploration of phonics with a focus on the phoneme /s/ and its various spellings. The objective of the lesson is to help the children recognise and learn different graphemes that represent the /s/ sound, which include , , , and . The lesson starts with a 'Word Breaker' activity where a word is spoken aloud, and the students are encouraged to break it down into individual sounds before saying the word together again. This activity is designed to reinforce their phonemic awareness and is repeated with multiple words for practice.

During the 'Teach' section of the lesson, the 'Seal' pictophone is shown to the class, and students are asked to identify the phoneme it represents. The teacher then introduces the various graphemes that can be used to write the /s/ phoneme and works with the class to write and underline the grapheme in example words such as 'sun', 'pass', 'scent', 'nice', and 'recent'. The 'Practise' part of the lesson involves a 'Sound Swap' game where a word is written on the board, read by the children, and then altered to a new word by changing specific letters, which helps to further consolidate their understanding of the graphemes. Finally, the 'Apply' stage uses mini whiteboard work, where children are dictated words and sentences containing the /s/ phoneme to write, such as "This cereal is tasty!" and "The sweet smelling scent is nice", along with words like 'decent', 'missing', 'sunshine', and 'place'. This activity allows them to apply their knowledge in writing and helps to solidify their grasp of the different spellings for the /s/ phoneme.