BEGINNING SOUNDS MATCH CARDS

Ready to print, these beginning sounds match cards are ideal for preschoolers and primary aged children learning their initial letters sounds.

Learning the beginning sounds letters make is one of the early keys to a solid phonological awareness. Children start learning this skill in preschool and continue to consolidate their knowledge of phonemes when they start school.

But it's not always the easiest skill for young children to master so providing lots of hands-on ways to practice this is key in the early years.

For me, a simple way to allow children this time to learn is to use literacy centres in class. 

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Why? Literacy centres are the perfect way to help reinforce early literacy concepts taught previously during class time in a fun and playful way. And because they are often hands-on, they help engage every learner and make differentiation easier to achieve in a busy classroom. 

As busy teachers, it's not always easy to find new ideas to help engage your students. I've regularly posted roundups of literacy centre activities I've used before which have proved popular with the children in my class. You can find all of those resources and activities here and here. 

At the start of the school year, particularly children's first year at school, my literacy centre activities will focus mostly on building phonological awareness skills. 

You can read more about what phonological awareness skills are and how important they are in this post but working on syllables, rhyme and beginning sounds are the key areas.

HOW BEST TO INTRODUCE BEGINNING SOUNDS

Many schools used prescribed phonics programs like Letters and Sounds, Soundwaves or Jolly Phonics and introduce the sounds letters make in a suggested order. SATPIN order sound familiar?

Gone are the days of 'Letter of the Week' as most of these programs move children through introducing the sounds more quickly than that with anywhere from 3-5 sounds being taught per week. 

My class has found these beginning letter sounds match cards a useful addition to our literacy centres during our first term particularly.

I've created two different sets of cards to match letters and sounds to. The first group of cards features smaller sets of sounds to match like these SATPIN ones to allow children just learning their letter sounds for focus on just the letters being introduced at that time in class. 

There are four sets like this that will allow children to practice identifying sounds from a smaller group of letters.

This is the set I first start with as it helps my students focus on just the sounds we are introducing at the same time. 

I've also created a set featuring the whole alphabet which are used for reviewing all the sounds once introduced later in the term.

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How to use them? 

Simply download the file and print out the cards. I like to laminate them to help them survive repeated use. 

Add some letters for students to match up to the initial sound of the picture they see like in the photo below - F for frog, P for panda, E for egg.

Here we used our magnetic letters  to match to the photo but you can also use whiteboard markers for children who are more confident forming their letters to write.

Usually I'll teach the letter sounds according to our school's literacy program then add these cards to our literacy centres the following week to help reinforce the sounds learnt.

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