Freebie Alert!
As parents, we know that the journey to reading begins long before a child picks up their first book. It starts with laying a strong foundation of pre-reading skills that pave the way for future literacy success. One of the fundamental skills that forms this crucial groundwork is beginning sound identification. I’m excited share with you a playful tool that transforms learning phonemic awareness skills into an engaging and approachable activity!
Why phonemic awareness is important
Identifying beginning sounds is significant in early literacy development. This skill involves recognizing the first sound in a word – like identifying the /b/ sound in “ball” or the /c/ sound in “cat.” It might seem simple, but it’s a crucial step that is required to be proficient in phonics and later, word recognition.
Phonemic awareness, the ability to distinguish and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) within words, plays a pivotal role in reading readiness. By honing this skill, we provide children with the practice they need to isolate and segment individual sounds. When littles are aware of the individual sounds in words, they are well on their way to proficient reading and spelling.
Like I’ve said in another blog post, as a third grade intervention specialist, the biggest deficit area is phonemic awareness. The kiddos that struggle are not able to accurately segment sounds in words even before letters are in the equation. This directly impacts their overall reading ability because they do not have those essential, foundational skills. This free activity is a GREAT introduction into bringing awareness to the sounds in the words.
The Activity
This Beginning Sound Matching Activity: Vegetable Edition involves 16 cards with pictures of vegetables and 16 cards with names of vegetables. The name cards of the vegetables are simply optional and should only be used if your child is super proficient with naming beginning sounds and needs a challenge. These flashcards have so many ways to be used, so I’ll start with the simplest to more challenging.
How to Introduce the Concept
I’m going to show you the “I Do, We Do, You Do” method teachers use all the time. Basically it’s modeling, then doing the activity together, then the child does it independently.
I Do (grown-up modeling)
Lay out all of the vegetable picture cards. Ask your child which ones they recognize. Move the ones they know to one side and the ones they don’t know to the other side. Then go one-by-one and say the name of the unknown vegetables and have your child repeat the names. There’s a reference sheet provided in case you’re unsure of the vegetables. Make sure they are saying the word to the best of their ability. (For example, my daughter is working on her /r/ sounds, so when she says “celery,” it’s “cel-uh-wee.” Right now, since she’s four, I’m not too concerned with her /r/ sounds, but she is saying the correct beginning sound, which is the /s/ sound.)
Then take the vegetables they knew, say the name, then draw attention to the beginning sound. “Here’s broccoli. B-b-b-broccoli. I hear the /b/ sound at the beginning of broccoli!” Go through the vegetables they like or are familiar with first. Continue to go through several vegetables modeling the beginning sounds. “Oh this is a cucumber. I love putting cucumbers on my salad. C-c-c-cucumber. I hear the /c/ sound at the beginning.” Make sure to have them repeat how you’re saying the word, emphasizing the beginning sound.
We Do (grown-up and child work together)
Start to ask them what beginning sounds they hear in other vegetables. You can even continue to model as you ask them. “What sound do you hear at the beginning of c-c-c-carrot?” Keep them in the driver’s seat by allowing them to explore and choose which vegetables they want to say and identify. Remember: we want to keep this experience positive so that you can revisit it later, so feel free to give them some easy ones so they can feel successful right off the bat.
If your little one is struggling to identify the beginning sounds, narrow it down to 2 options. “Does p-p-p-pepper starts with /c/ or /p/? Does s-s-s-squash start with /s/ or /b/?” Feel free to switch back and forth between times where you model it alone and then give your child a chance to identify.
You Do
Only when you feel your child is becoming more confident in identifying beginning sounds, have them try this without help. At this stage, you can hand them a vegetable card and tell them the name if they’ve forgotten and then ask them to identify the beginning sound. What sound do you hear at the beginning of “lettuce?” Notice this time you’re not providing much support other than saying the name of the vegetable.
Make sure to celebrate their attempts and successes.
“I like how you noticed the /f/ sound in the word ‘cauliflower,’ but I hear the /c/ sound at the beginning of c-c-c-cauliflower.”
“Wow! You’re right! You’re getting better and better at beginning sounds!”
Ways to Play
SIMPLE MATCH: Lay out all the cards face up and tell the child that each vegetable card matches another because they both have the same beginning sound. At this point you can demonstrate how to identify a match. P-p-p-pepper matches p-p-p-potato because they both start with the /p/ sound. Then you can set the match aside. Allow your child to go in whatever order they want to discover the matches.
MEMORY: Lay the cards out face-down and play a memory matching game with the cards. This activity would be especially helpful because they have to distinguish between sounds and then evaluate to see if they’re the same.
GO FISH: Pass out 3 cards at a time and play Go Fish. The child will have to ask, “Do you have a card that starts with the /__/ sound?” There are only 16 cards and four cards that have the /s/ sound and four cards that have the /p/ sound, so this game might not last very long. BUT I also have a fruit edition of the game available on TeachersPayTeachers (Purchasing straight from the blog is coming soon!) You could combine both the vegetable and fruit decks to have an awesome game of Go Fish. I wonder if any fruits would match with vegetables!
MATCH PICTURE TO WORD CARDS: I do not recommend using the word cards for littles, but I wanted to include them in case one needed a challenge or their older siblings wanted to play. This way to play should only be used IF AND ONLY IF your child has 100% mastered the beginning sounds for these cards AND knows all letter sounds. This would be an activity for kiddos that are already beginning to read and are working on decoding words.
Things to keep in mind
FOCUS ON SOUNDS, NOT LETTERS: When playing this game, you are only focusing on sounds, not letters. So, with the word “celery,” its match would not be “cucumber” even though they have the same beginning letter. It would be with “spinach,” because they have the same beginning sound, the /s/ sound. **If using the name cards, point out that sometimes the letter C is a soft c and can make the /s/ sound when it’s before the letter E.
CLIP THE SOUNDS: When working with sounds it’s important to not attach an “uh” to the end of the sounds. The /b/ sound should not be pronounced “buh,” but just the /b/ sound. It should sound very brief because it’s not a continuous sound. When saying any sound, it’s important to “clip” off the “uh” sound.
DO NOT EXPECT YOUR CHILD TO DO IT ALL IN ONE SITTING: Have you met kids? They have an extremely limited attention span. Do not expect to introduce this, practice it, and then play memory matching or Go Fish all in one sitting, especially with little ones. This should be a skill and activity that you kind of dabble in here and there. YOU know your child the best, and you will know how long they will last with an activity like this. A good rule of thumb is that children will last the same number of minutes as their age, plus one minute. For example, my daughter is 4, so she would last five minutes (4 + 1 = 5).
GREAT VOCABULARY BUILDING ACTIVITY: There’s a good chance that your child will not be familiar with all the different types of vegetables. This is a great way to introduce different vegetables without the “threat” of them having to try it! Avoid talk of not liking vegetables, so that they stay open to trying them in the future! For example, I do not like cucumbers. (I try them once a year in the event that my taste buds change, but it hasn’t happened yet!) Even though I don’t like cucumbers, I could describe them in other ways. “This is a c-c-c-cucumber. Nona grows them in her garden and this is the vegetable they use to make pickles! How cool is that?”
I can’t speak for other kiddos, but I know that when we are at the grocery store or in my mother-in-law’s garden, my daughter is more likely to try a vegetable if she’s seen it in a TV show or she has a toy version of it. Maybe your little one will be inspired the next time they come across some squash because they remembered it from the game!
How to Print
Print this resource one-sided. I suggest printing the cards on cardstock because we all know how destructive kids can be with cards. Also, printing on cardstock helps the to keep the image from showing through the cards to the other side. If playing the memory game or Go Fish, you won’t want to be able to see through the cards.
For my set of cards, I cut the cardstock then laminated the cards and cut again, leaving a tiny edge of laminating around the card. You probably could laminate the whole sheet without cutting, that way you only have to cut once. However, this could result in the lamination pulling away from the cardstock over time.
Let me know what you think!
Have you used this product at home or in the classroom? Did you use it a different way? Leave a comment to let me know how you used this resource!