Beginning, Middle or End: Where Is the Letter?

Six wide cards, two across and three down, make up this Kindergarten beginning-middle-end page for one letter of the week — the sheet shown is for M. Each card carries a color picture, the word printed on a handwriting rule beside it (tomato, lamp, mailbox, mountain, worm, broom), and under the word three dashed boxes. A tiny key sits above the boxes: three small squares with the first, the middle or the last square shaded, one key per box. The child says the word, decides whether the M is heard at the beginning, in the middle or at the end, and colors that box. A slim strip at the top holds the letter card and a single lane of dashed capital letters to trace; there are no write rows on this face.

The page is built so that every position is represented: two of the six words carry the letter at the beginning, two in the middle and two at the end. That balance stops a child from coloring the first box every time and being right often enough to keep doing it. Printing the word next to the picture is deliberate at this level — a child who has just met the letter can check the sound against the letter they can see, which is the bridge between phonemic awareness and phonics that this task sits on.

Coloring rather than writing keeps the page short; most children finish it in a few minutes, so it works as a warm-up before the base letter sheet or as a quick check afterward. It uses the same letter fan as the rest of the letter-of-the-week family, so a set for the week can be printed together. For the version where the letter is counted inside words rather than located, see the circle-and-count page.