About this activity
Two short passages packed with /s/: Sam sees the sun, Sam sits on soft sand, Sam sips some soup, Sam says it is a super sunny Saturday; and Sue has six snacks, she saves some seeds, she sends a sack of snacks to school, sadly the snacks are soggy. Four sentences each, with more than a dozen targets and no pause to reset.
How to use it in a session
Read it together first, then let the student read or retell it alone. A passage is a much heavier load than a sentence, and reading in unison before reading alone is a step rather than a shortcut. Ask for a retell in the student's own words afterwards, which removes the text and moves the targets into spontaneous speech — that is where carryover is actually tested.
What to listen for
Listen for accuracy decaying across the passage. Most students hold the sound for the first two sentences and lose it by the fourth, and where the decay starts is more informative than an overall percentage. Watch the clusters — soft, sips, snacks, sends, sack — which are a different target and usually the first to go.
Carrying it home
One passage read aloud to a family member is a realistic home task. It is short enough to finish and long enough to matter, which beats a word list on both counts.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Second through fifth, for students accurate on /s/ at sentence level.
- Is it free?
- Yes, both passages play with no account and no card.
- Why connected text rather than sentences?
- Because generalisation happens in connected speech. A passage puts a dozen targets in a row with no reset between them, which is much closer to conversation than separate sentences.