Beginning Sounds with Zoo Animals — Letter A

Listen for the first sound in armadillo. On this sheet the child is handed the letter A and finds every one of the zoo animals whose name begins with its sound — armadillo and antelope all open with A. Saying each word, catching its opening sound, then tying that sound to the letter A is the Kindergarten letter-sound link this practises, set among a lion, a zebra and a giraffe.

To find what begins with A, a child must say each picture and isolate its first sound, then judge whether it matches A. That is the heart of early phonics — knowing the sound a letter makes and catching it at the front of words like armadillo. The varied a lion, a zebra and a giraffe keep a wide set of opening sounds in play, so the work never narrows to one rehearsed answer; the child really has to listen.

Listening for A across a scene of zoo animals turns phonics into a game, and finishing one letter invites the next. Try the B-sound pictures in zoo animals, or the C-sound pictures in zoo animals. Browse all the beginning-sounds worksheets or the entire zoo animals 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.