Beginning Letter Match with Feelings

Match each picture to its first letter. This worksheet lists feelings — happy, sad and surprised faces among them — beside a column of letters, and the child links each picture to the letter its name begins with. Hearing the opening sound of a word and pairing it with the matching letter is foundational phonics, the letter-sound link that early reading depends on. The familiar pictures keep the focus on the sound.

Beginning letter-sound matching is foundational Kindergarten reading work: the child listens for a word's opening sound and finds the letter that makes it, building the sound-to-print link reading depends on. Doing it with familiar feelings pictures keeps the practice concrete and the focus on the first sound, exactly where early phonics begins.

Children who like matching feelings to their beginning letters get quicker at hearing first sounds each time. When this feels easy, match the letters in beginning letters with farm animals, or try beginning letters with furniture. You can also browse every beginning-letter worksheet or the whole kindergarten collection — each sheet prints cleanly or plays online for free, and the more a child matches, the surer their grasp of letter sounds grows, building the phonics foundation that reading words rests on.