Beginning Sounds with Animals — Letter R

Begin with raccoon and listen to its first sound. This sheet asks the child to find every one of the animals that starts the same way as R — raccoon, rabbit and reindeer — and mark them. The point is the sound at the front of each word and the letter R it belongs to, the Kindergarten letter-sound link, set in a scene mixing a cat, a sheep and a hen so the child sifts many opening sounds to find R's.

To find what begins with R, a child must say each picture and isolate its first sound, then judge whether it matches R. That is the heart of early phonics — knowing the sound a letter makes and catching it at the front of words like raccoon. The varied a cat, a sheep and a hen keep a wide set of opening sounds in play, so the work never narrows to one rehearsed answer; the child really has to listen.

Children who enjoy hunting the animals settle into saying each picture and listening for the R sound, and every match is a small win. When R feels easy, try the beginning sounds in the A-sound pictures in animals, or the B-sound pictures in animals. You can also browse every beginning-sounds worksheet or the whole animals collection for kindergarten — each sheet prints cleanly or plays online for free, and the more first sounds a child hunts, the quicker the link between a sound and its letter becomes automatic.