Beginning Sounds with Accessories — Letter M

Find the M sound among the accessories. The child works across the scene, saying each picture and keeping the ones that begin with M — mask, medal and mitten. It is listening, not looking: mask starts with M's sound, so it is marked, while hats, belts and a scarf that begin differently are left. Matching a word's opening sound to its letter is the Kindergarten phonics move this rehearses, one picture at a time.

Matching a sound to its letter is what eventually lets a child decode words, and it starts with beginning sounds like M's. This sheet has the child hear the opening of each picture — mask and the rest of the accessories — and connect it to M. A scene of hats, belts and a scarf offers many first sounds, so the sound-letter link gets rehearsed across a rich mix of words rather than drilled one at a time.

Hunting a scene of accessories for the letter M is the kind of quiet phonics that adds up fast. After M, keep the listening going with the A-sound pictures in accessories, or the B-sound pictures in accessories. The whole accessories collection and every beginning-sounds sheet print cleanly or play free online for kindergarten — and the more opening sounds a child sorts, the more automatic the sound-to-letter link becomes.