Your Child Will Learn
To identify letters and their sounds
Here’s What to Do
- Before you begin, use post-it notes or small sheets of paper to write labels for 10 objects in your home. Make sure some of the names begin with the same first letter. Stick the labels on the objects.
- Walk around your home reading the names on the labels. Encourage your child to say the word, identify the starting letter, and say the sound of the starting letter.
- Together with your child, collect the labels and group them by the first letters in the objects’ names. (for example: “table” and “toaster”)
- For the words that don’t have any first letter matches, see if your child can find another item in your home that starts with that letter.
Put PEER Into Action
PAUSE
- Turn off distractions and get ready to give each other focused attention
ENGAGE
- “Let’s read all these labels in the kitchen. Fridge… can you say fridge? What letter does fridge start with? What sound does F make? Ffffff!”
- “Can you find two labels of words that start with T?”
ENCOURAGE
- “You are totally right that cup and kiwi start with the ‘kuh’ sound, but actually they are spelled with different letters. Cup starts with a ‘c’ and kiwi start with a ‘k.’ Those are two tricky words!”
- “Can you think of another word that starts with the same sound? Buh, buh, bowl. What else stars with the buh sound?”
REFLECT
- What letters and letter sounds does your child know? Which ones are they still working on?
Not Quite Ready
Play this game with words that start with letters you think your child already knows.
Ready for More
Label items with tricky first letters like quarter and quilt or zipper and zester.
As Your Child Masters This Skill
They will show awareness for words with letters and sounds that begin the same way.
Time to Complete
10 minutes
Materials Needed
Post-it notes or small sheets of paper, pencil or pen