About this activity
Six long /s/ words: supermarket, salamander, strawberry, spaghetti, sunshine, telescope. Three of them start with an /s/ cluster — strawberry, spaghetti and the st in supermarket's middle — which raises the demand again, since a cluster inside a four-syllable word is the hardest configuration in this set.
How to use it in a session
Split into syllables and rebuild. Su-per-mar-ket has two targets, and slowing it down gives the student a shot at both. Do sunshine and telescope first, which are two and three syllables with clean singleton targets, before strawberry and spaghetti. Ten minutes is enough for six words with the syllable step.
What to listen for
Listen for the cluster separately from the singleton. A student accurate on sunshine and inaccurate on strawberry has /s/ and not /str/, which is a cluster problem rather than an /s/ one. Watch supermarket, which has an /s/ at the start and an /s/ inside a cluster in the middle — the two often come out differently in the same word.
Carrying it home
Supermarket, strawberry and spaghetti are ordinary household words. Asking for one careful production of one of them beats a list, because the length gives more practice per word.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Second through fifth, for students accurate on /s/ in short words.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all six words play with no login.
- My student is fine on 'sunshine' and not 'strawberry'. Why?
- Because strawberry begins with a three-consonant cluster, which is a different motor task from a single /s/. Cluster work is its own target rather than more practice on the singleton.