LittleTracers / Phonics / Beginning sounds
Printable beginning sounds worksheets
One picture, one box: the child writes the letter the word starts with. It's usually the first phonics sheet a child can finish independently, because it asks for a single sound rather than a whole word.
The picture bank covers the whole alphabet, so you can build a sheet around the letters you're working on this week rather than whatever a template happened to include.
Free • prints on US Letter • pictures are vector line art, sharp at any size
Questions
- What is a beginning sound?
- The first sound you hear in a spoken word — the /k/ in cat. It's the sound, not the letter name, which is why children say "kuh" rather than "see" when sounding out cat.
- What order should letters be taught in?
- Not alphabetical. Most programs start with s, a, t, p, i, n because those few letters already spell real words like sat, pin and tap, which lets a child read something on day one.
- My child says the letter name instead of the sound.
- Very common, and worth gently redirecting: names don't help you read a word, sounds do. Model it — "this is em, and it says mmm" — and they usually separate the two within a few weeks.
More phonics sheets
CVC wordsA picture and one box per letter — cat, dog, sun, pig.Elkonin sound boxesOne box per sound, not per letter — fish gets three.
Working on letter formation too? A–Z letter tracing and name tracing use the same school ruling.