Beginning Sounds with Supermarket Things — Letter I

Find the I sound among the supermarket things. The child works across the scene, saying each picture and keeping the ones that begin with I — ice cream. It is listening, not looking: ice cream starts with I's sound, so it is marked, while a cart, a basket and a till 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.

Hearing the opening sound of a spoken word and tying it to a letter is exactly the letter-sound correspondence Kindergarten readers build. Marking the supermarket things that begin with I rehearses it many times: say ice cream, listen to its start, match I. Because the child works from pictures and their own voice, no reading is needed — just the ear and the growing sense that I stands for one particular sound.

Hunting a scene of supermarket things for the letter I is the kind of quiet phonics that adds up fast. After I, keep the listening going with the A-sound pictures in supermarket things, or the B-sound pictures in supermarket things. The whole supermarket things 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.