Initial Letter Sounds

Single letter sounds at the beginning of words:

boy ‘b’    girl ‘g’   man ‘m’   lady ‘l’   

Say the word followed by the initial sound!

Common Endings

Ld, nd, lk, nk, sk, lp, mp, sp, ct, ft, lt, nt, pt, st, xt, lf, nch, lth, ing, er, ed, ll, ff

CVC words

These letters stand for Consonant Vowel Consonant.

All these words are three letter words with one of the vowels    a  e  i  o  u    in the middle.  Build these words by saying each sound and blending them together!

Encourage your child to identify the sound at the beginning, at the end and in the middle of each word:

bag, mat   net, bed   pig, tin   hot, log   nut, mug

Children enjoy being detectives and trying to spot CVC words hidden in a longer word:

catch,  spend, finger,  stop, trunk

An extension to this activity is finding other words within words:

pink  (in,pin,ink) 

that  (at, hat) 

father (fat, at, her)

They enjoy rhyming words!

cat, hat, bat       

peg, leg, beg         

pin, bin, tin            

hot, pot, lot        

sun, fun, bun

Initial Blends

Two or three letters which blend together to make a single sound.  Look for these at the beginning of words:

bl, br, cl, cr, dr, dw, fl, gl, gr, pl. br, sc, scr, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, spl, spr, squ, st, str, sw, tr, tw, thr, shr.

Make up some silly sentences.  Have fun!

Fred the frog frightened his friend Frank by frying french fries on Friday.

Grandad grew great green grass and grapes.

Strong straps have straight strawberry stripes.