Beginning Sounds with Christmas — Letter W

Find the W sound among the Christmas things. The child works across the scene, saying each picture and keeping the ones that begin with W — wreath. It is listening, not looking: wreath starts with W's sound, so it is marked, while a tree, a bauble and a stocking 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.

Listening for a word's first sound and matching it to a letter is foundational phonics — the link a child needs before sounding words out. Hunting the Christmas things for W rehearses it concretely: say each picture, hear the start, match the letter. With wreath hiding among a tree, a bauble and a stocking, the child compares many opening sounds in one sitting, and the connection between the W sound and its letter grows a little more automatic each time.

A child who hears that wreath opens with the W sound is doing real reading groundwork, one picture at a time. Keep going with the A-sound pictures in christmas, or the B-sound pictures in christmas. The full Christmas things collection and every beginning-sounds worksheet are free to print or play online for kindergarten, and every first sound a child catches builds toward sounding out whole words later.