What do you eat at your house and theres an /s/ in that word

Somehow or another my kids work food into many conversations and activities. Recently one of the students said " We eat lobster and crab at my house". Puzzling. Very puzzling and a completely unexpected comment. I know the family and some of their financial situation pretty well and wouldnt expect them to be able to purchase these foods, which are slightly more expensive then some other foods.

Many of the kids asked what lobster is. The kids have been talking about lobster and looking for it amongst the food in our dramatic play area. I brought in some books about lobster, most of them showed lobsters in the ocean or in traps and not necessarily on someone's dinner plate, so I am not sure if they made the connection.

Fast forward a few days and we are talking about the letter S and the /s/ sound. The kids are thinking of words that begin with /s/. I am writing down their ideas on the white board. The list includes "sit" "Sunday", "soup", "sauce" and the names of classmates whose names begin with S. A student who frequently struggles with letter-sound acitivities raised her hand and said "there is a /s/ in lobster." The lobster surprised me again! Typically students recognize initial and final sounds of words long before they hear and discriminate the middle sounds of words. THis particular student has tremendous difficulty with beginning sounds and I was surprised about her fairly higher level answer. I stretched out the word for the kids, exaggerating that sound so that more students could hear it. I wonder if she really recognized and heard the /s/ sound in lobster or if she was just guessing that the word began with that sound, and it was just coincidence that there was a /s/ sound in that word she chose. I wish I had asked her more about her thinking so I could better understand and help her.

The whole experience reminded me not to make too many assumptions about my students' experiences outside of school. It also made me think more carefully about this particular struggling student and what I can do to modify phonetic awareness activities to increase her success and ability.

Image is from http://www.sealifegifts.net/user_images/lobster4a.JPG found on 11/22/08 AT 3:15PM