Picture Word Cards: Animals

Eight cut-out cards on one sheet, two across and four down, make up this kindergarten set of animals picture word cards. Each card shows one animal drawn large with its word in a cream label underneath: on this print penguin, antelope, seagull, moose, cat, camel, wolf and bat. Dotted lines with a scissors mark run between the cards. The child cuts the sheet into eight, then takes each card, says the name of the picture, and reads the word under it. Nothing is written on the page and nothing is drawn.

A picture word card is the simplest reading object there is: the picture tells the child what the word says, so the child can read a word like antelope long before sounding it out is possible, and each success is real. The cards outlive the sheet. They go on a word wall, into a pocket chart, or into a bag for a five-minute naming game, and the same eight animals are met again and again until the words are known on sight. The teacher listens to the naming: a child who says bird for seagull has read the picture but not yet the word.

Print in color on card stock if the set is going to be handled, and cut with the child if scissors are part of the lesson. The five faces of this family change one thing each: the matching pairs set splits picture and word onto separate cards, the a or an cards add the article, one and many prints singular beside plural, the bilingual cards add Spanish, and the syllable cards break each word into parts. These are cut-out cards with nothing to write; matching pictures to words on a page is a different worksheet type.