Sound Boxes with the First Sound Given: Finish the Word

Every word on this Kindergarten sound boxes page starts for the child: the first box is already filled in, and the rest are empty. Six clothing pictures sit on numbered cards, two across and three down — on this sheet a vest, a pair of jeans, a scarf, a blouse, a beanie and a pair of boots — with four or five dashed boxes under each, the first letter printed in teal (v, j, s, b, b, b). Wide boxes with a curve beneath mark the two-letter sounds: the ea of jeans, the ar of scarf, the oo of boots, two in blouse and two in beanie. The child says the word slowly and writes one sound in each empty box.

Giving the first sound solves the part of the task that a hesitant child gets stuck on — starting — and leaves the middle and end sounds, which are the ones that matter for segmenting. Words on this face are longer than the base page's, four to five sounds each, so the scaffold buys a step up in length rather than a step down in difficulty. Three of the six on this sheet begin with b, which is fine: the printed letter is a starting point, not a clue to sort by.

Print it for children who finished the base sound boxes page with help, or as the middle step between counting sounds and writing them all. The wide boxes matter more here than on the base, so it is worth saying beforehand that the curve means two letters, one sound. Other clothing and non-clothing themes print in the same six-card layout.