Words with the Letter: Hear It Anywhere in the Word

Instead of asking which word begins with the letter, this Kindergarten words-with page asks where else the letter hides. The Mm version shown here keeps the letter card and the two tracing lanes of the letter-of-the-week base at the top, then lays out eight picture cards — a jar of jam, a lamp, a net, a camel, a window, a necklace, a watch and a hammer — and the child circles the four that have the M sound somewhere inside the word but not at the start: jam, lamp, camel and hammer. The two handwriting rows for M and m close the page as before.

Hearing a sound in the middle or at the end of a word is a later skill than hearing it first, because the child has to hold the whole word and scan it. The shipped configuration guarantees that at least two of the four hits carry the letter in the middle of the word rather than at the end, so the page cannot be solved by listening for a final sound alone. The four foils never begin with the target letter either, which removes the shortcut of circling anything that starts with it — that is the base page's job, not this one's.

Print it after the base sheet for the same letter, once the child can find the letter at the start without hesitating. The trace lanes and write rows mean it still counts as a handwriting page, so it fits the same letter-of-the-week slot in a weekly plan. The beginning-middle-end page is the natural next step: it takes the same idea and asks the child to say which of the three positions the sound is in.