Beginning Sounds with Forest Creatures — Letter L

Tune the ear to L. Across a scene of forest creatures, this Kindergarten worksheet has the child say each picture and circle the ones that begin with the sound L makes — lizard and ladybug. Hearing how lizard opens and matching that sound to the letter L is beginning-sound phonics; the printed letter shape never comes into it. The a fox, a deer and a hedgehog give a rich mix of first sounds to listen through.

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

Listening for L across a scene of forest creatures turns phonics into a game, and finishing one letter invites the next. Try the A-sound pictures in forest creatures, or the B-sound pictures in forest creatures. Browse all the beginning-sounds worksheets or the entire forest creatures set, free to print or play online for kindergarten, and watch how quickly a child starts catching the first sound in a word on their own.