Beginning Letter Match with Forest Creatures

What letter does it start with? On this matching sheet a child connects each forest creatures picture to its beginning letter. Looking at a fox, a deer and a hedgehog and the others, the child says the word, listens for the first sound, and draws a line to the letter that makes it. Matching pictures to their starting letters is beginning letter-sound practice — the core decoding skill Kindergarten readers are building.

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 forest creatures pictures keeps the practice concrete and the focus on the first sound, exactly where early phonics begins.

Children who like matching forest creatures to their beginning letters get quicker at hearing first sounds each time. When this feels easy, match the letters in beginning letters with fruits, or try beginning letters with kitchen tools. 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.