Beginning Sounds with Forest Creatures — Letter D

Listen for the first sound in dragonfly. On this sheet the child is handed the letter D and finds every one of the forest creatures whose name begins with its sound — dragonfly and deer all open with D. Saying each word, catching its opening sound, then tying that sound to the letter D is the Kindergarten letter-sound link this practises, set among a fox, a deer and a hedgehog.

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

Children who enjoy hunting the forest creatures settle into saying each picture and listening for the D sound, and every match is a small win. When D feels easy, try the beginning sounds in the A-sound pictures in forest creatures, or the B-sound pictures in forest creatures. You can also browse every beginning-sounds worksheet or the whole forest creatures 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.