Beginning Sounds Worksheets

Welcome to our beginning sounds worksheets section! Identifying the beginning sound in a word is a reader’s first step towards reading words. The beginning sound of a word is the first phoneme in the word and does not necessarily match the first letter of the word. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound heard in a language.

To be a master of identifying and manipulating beginning sounds in words, students need to be able to listen for and match the sound they hear with its spoken or written letter. For example, a learner should be able to hear that in the word chat, the beginning sound is “ch” as spelled by the letters C and H. Notice that in this word there are two written letters making one single phoneme.

Once students are able to identify beginning sounds, they can practice changing the phonemes they hear in the beginning of words to make other words. For example, they can change the C and H at the beginning of the word “chat” to just an h, making the word “hat”.

Beginning sound manipulation skills are crucial in early reading. Learners use the skill of identifying beginning sounds to recognize patterns in words and understand that words can be put into categories. When students understand that words are made up of sounds, they are able to transfer this knowledge to their reading and writing. The more patterns recognized, the easier reading becomes.

Beginning Sounds Activity

If you want to increase an early reader’s ability to identify and manipulate beginning sounds, try this activity. This activity is called “first sound freeze”. You can try it with or without paper and pencil. First say a word to your learner. Start with words that can be changed to have many beginning sounds, like “cat”, “rat”, “bat”, “hat”, “chat” and “Pat”. Have your learners say each sound in the word, then say freeze. Explain that. This will freeze the other two sounds in the word. Now change the first letter without changing the final two. They are frozen. For a hands-on visual approach to this game, try writing out three letter words on sticky notes, one letter on each sticky note. Set up the word. Then have students freeze the letters by pointing to them and change out the first sound to make new words.