Initial Sound Cards

This is a set of Initial Sound Cards for teaching even very young children.  You can take a small toddler, or an older child, on your knee or lap to use these cards.  I have laminated my cards for durability, but you can just as easily use sheet protectors. This document will look best printed in grayscale (the letter u page does have one red circle to denote the udder).

These cards will have many images that are unfamiliar to the child.  This will enrich their vocabulary and can help you begin talking about interesting things with the child.  Undoubtedly children will have favorite pictures that they will want to return to time after time.

Something to make note about these cards is that I have taken pains to make sure that the sound is isolated.  This means that when I have a letter such as an 'S' I want to use words that have that sound followed by a vowel sound.  I do not use words such as swan or snail, because the s sound is not isolated in that word.  I have also searched a long time to make it possible to have the initial vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u) be purely phonetic.  This will help eliminate confusion for little ones having their first introduction to sounds.  All children who are learning to read can benefit from these cards.

On the bottom of each page is a list of the pictures on that page.

Presentation:

• sit the child on your lap or in a comfortable spot where viewing and pointing to the card is easy for you
• point to the letter and say the phonetic sound (i.e. the a says it's short sound like in apple, not it's name), then point to the first picture on the page and say its name
• point again to the letter and say the phonetic sound, then point to the next picture and say its name etc through the whole card
• encourage the child to say the sound and the name of the picture after you, and when capable with you
• only continue this work for as long as it is interesting and fun for the child

Initial Sound Cards
click on picture to link to file