Make a smiley mouth
Hide your tongue behind your teeth
Make the ‘hissy’ snake sound
Enclosed are a series of worksheets to help your child to
pronounce this sound but also to hear the difference between
this sound and the sound they currently use instead.
Work though the stages in order. Don’t move on to the next
stage until they can do the activities on several different
occasions successfully.
Praise any attempts for trying.
Stages:
Stage Listening
Saying
1
2
3
Point and say ‘s’
Say ‘s’ with a vowel
Say the rhyming pairs of
words
Say words starting with
‘s’
Say ‘s’ words in a short
sentence
4
Listen to ‘s’ and ‘d’
Listen to rhyming pairs
Listen to words beginning
with ‘s’ & ‘d’
As above
5
Have Fun
Any questions please contact:
Stage 1
Listen to ‘s’ and ‘d’
This is so that your child can hear
the difference between the 2
sounds they confuse
Point and say the ‘s’ sound
This is to give your child practice
at saying their new sound so that
it becomes easy for them
Listening to the sounds ‘s’ or ‘d’
Introduce the two pictures below to your child
Tell them the sound each one makes
Don’t worry about asking them to say the sound at this time
Say one of the sounds and ask your child to point to the one you
say
Make it more fun by cutting the sounds out then:
Get your child to roll a car/ball to the sound they hear, or
Run to the sound they hear, or
Jump on the sound they hear
Etc
Point and say the sounds
Stage 2
Listen to rhyming pairs or words
This is so your child can hear that
when ‘s’ and ‘d’ are at the starts
of words they mean different
things
Say ‘s’ with a vowel
This is so your child can have
practice at using ‘s’ in a very
simple word
Listening to rhyming pairs of words
These words sound the same except they have either a ‘long hissy’ sound
(e.g. s) or a ’short’ sound (e.g. d) at the beginning.
•
•
•
Cut out a pair of words e.g. sad, dad
Remind your child that sad starts with a long hissy sound ‘s’ and
dad starts with a short sound ‘d’.
Say one of the words and your child has to point to the correct
picture.
There are lots of different games you can play
•
•
•
•
Cut up the pictures
Place them on the floor a few feet apart.
Say the word e.g. sea and your child has to roll a toy car at the
picture of the sea.
Show your child the sea picture to let them know they’ve got it
right.
Once they are good at this, swap over and let them be the teacher (this
is stage 3 part of the program).
If your child has difficulty with this e.g. he/she says the same word for
both pictures, remind him/her that ‘d’ is a short sound and ’s’ is a long
hissy sound.
Sometimes it is helpful to split the word e.g. d- ad, s-ad.
(Other games could be getting a reward when they point to the correct
picture e.g. putting a piece in a puzzle, a brick on the tower, colouring a
piece of a picture)
Minimal pairs
Saw
Door
Shoe
Two
Alien Game
1) Put 1 consonant sound in here e.g. ‘s’
‘ee’
Put 1 vowel sound here e.g.
2) Point to each picture and say the sound to make the alien word e.g. “s –
ee” then try to join the sounds together by saying them quicker e.g. “sea”
Pictures to play the Alien Game
Stage 3
Listening to words beginning with
‘s’ or ‘d’
This is so your child can hear the
difference between ‘s’ and ‘d’
when they are at the starts of
simple words
Saying rhyming pairs of words
This is so your child can have
practice at using the ‘s’ sound to
make themselves understood to
the listener
Listening to words beginning with ‘s’ or ‘d’
Cut out the pictures provided - or
Draw pictures of things beginning with ‘s’ and ‘d’ with your child
– or
Cut out pictures from a magazine/catalogue that begin with ‘s’
and ‘d’
Keep all the pictures together in an envelope
Listening Game
Pick any six pictures starting with ‘s’ or ‘d’
Show your child one picture and say the word clearly e.g. “sun”.
Make sure your child is watching your face
Let your child point to the sound they hear at the start of the
word, ‘s’ or ‘d’. Remind your child that ‘s’ is the long hissy sound –
let them point to the sound they hear
Do the same with the other five pictures
Always praise your child and show them the correct sound if
they don’t know
Let your child have a small reward at the end e.g. they can play
a game or have a smiley face on their chart
Play this game on different days
Talk about ‘s’ and ‘d’ words in the day e.g. “I can hear ‘s’……”
Stage 4
Say words starting with ‘s’
Practice for your child at using
their new sound in words
Saying words starting with ‘s’
Use the pictures of words starting with ‘s’
There are 2 sets of the pictures. You could play games like:
Snap
Pairs
Lotto
Let your child practice saying each word – remembering to use
the ‘s’ sound
‘S’ Word Inital
‘S’ Word Inital
Stage 5
Say ‘s’ words in a short sentence
Practice for your child at using ‘s’
whilst remembering their other
sounds
Insert initial s worksheets