Beginning Sounds with Supermarket Things — Letter S

Here the target letter is S, and the child circles the supermarket things that begin with its sound. They say a picture — shampoo — stretch out its first sound, and decide whether it matches S. The scene mixes a cart, a basket and a till, so the ear has to work: shampoo, soda and salt begin with S while the rest do not. Hearing the opening sound, not spotting a letter shape, is the whole game.

Linking the letter S to the sound it makes is the bedrock of Kindergarten reading, and this hunt practises it directly: the child hears the first sound of shampoo and decides it belongs to S. This is letter-SOUND work, not letter-shape recognition — a child has to know what S sounds like, then catch that sound at the start of words like shampoo, soda and salt, long before they could read those words on their own.

Once a child can pick the S sound out of a word like shampoo, that same careful listening works everywhere. When this sheet feels easy, move on to the A-sound pictures in supermarket things, or the B-sound pictures in supermarket things. Every beginning-sounds worksheet and the full supermarket things set are free to print or play online for kindergarten, and each first sound a child names makes the next letter that little bit quicker to catch.