Why teach beginning sounds

Identify and practice listening to the beginning sound in one-syllable words, focusing on one sound phoneme at a time.

Sort picture cards into piles by their beginning sounds. Now that your child has learned some of the starting sounds, she will practice differentiating between multiple beginning sounds.

In the Word Families module , your child learned to synthesize beginning sounds and word stems to make words. I believe young children need to be taught early the distinction between a letter's name and the sound it makes in words - D said as 'dee' as it's letter name but makes a shorter 'd' sound phonetically.

Depending on your literacy program think Jolly Phonics, Words There Way, Sounds and Letters, Thrass, Soundwaves , each has a particular order for introducing the letters. My preferred way is to teach a letter a day so that over a week you have a handful of letters to review and consolidate at a time. The most common - SATPIN start, then allows children to begin to mix and match these letters to start making simple words - at, it, in, pat, sat, tin, pin.

Having visual prompts around your classroom to help support young children check their thinking is key at this stage. As Early Childhood teachers, we know children 'read' pictures before they read words.

You can find a copy of these posters here. With one Reception class, we made our own alphabet wall charts which was such a fun term long project that helped the children understand initial sounds and make connections across different words.

With many young children starting school with poor or underdeveloped fine motor skills, I often use clothes pegs in our centre activities to help strengthen those small hand muscles while allowing them to practice other skills.

These peg clip cards are a perfect example. Once the children have learnt their letter sounds they can practice differentiating between just three pictures to find the one that matches the letter displayed on the cards. Beginning sounds sticks Pre-K Pages. Alphabet scavenger hunt with beginning sounds This Reading Mama.

Beginning letter sounds clip cards The Measured Mom. Farm animals beginning sounds game Mom Inspired Life. Planning meaningful lessons for students week after week, all while balancing other teaching responsibilities and a personal life, can be a daunting task. Preschool Teacher is excited to share with you some amazing lesson plans, activity packs, and much more! We offer a wide variety of themes that are frequently used in preschool classrooms, as well as some less common but super interesting themes.

Click on the image below to learn more about our beginning sounds digital activity bundle!