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PSPKK12376 Comments

Beginning sound picture sorts

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Looking for a simple, low-prep activity to help your child learn beginning sounds? Here you go!

Beginning sounds picture sort main image

Today I’m sharing a set of low-prep printables that will help your child or students master beginning sounds.

18 beginning sound picture sorts

Each sort asks your child to sort pictures into 2, 3, or 4 groups based on their beginning sounds.

picture sort for beginning sounds 1

Simply cut out the headers and the pictures. Glue or place each header at the top of a column, and have your child say the name of each picture. After he names the picture, he glues or places it in the appropriate column.

18 beginning sound picture sorts sample

You’ll get a total of eighteen picture sorts (pictured above) in the download.

Tips for using these picture sorts

  • Make sure your child knows the names of the pictures before asking him to do the sort. You’ll find a picture key at the front of the download.
  • If you are doing these with a young preschooler, do all or most of the cutting for your child – no need to wear him out before he begins!
  • If your child is just starting to learn letter sounds, go through the sorts in order. They progress from easy to hard. Do just one sort per day, and review what you’ve learned through fun alphabet activities before working at a new sound.
  • If your child struggles with a sort, store the pieces in a plastic bag and review the same sort until you’re ready to move to the next one.
  • If you feel that your child already knows most of his letter sounds and has phonemic awareness, use these as a review before moving on to a beginning reading curriculum.

picture sort for beginning sounds 2

My middle son enjoyed these when we did them a year ago (it’s taken me this long to get them on the blog, whoops!). But when I pulled them out for his younger brother (4 1/2) he resisted them (that’s a nice way to say that he called them boring and refused to do them).

Despite his resistance, I’m still pulling these out for my preschooler because the review is good for him. (And because I’m mean like that.) It won’t be a strong focus, though, because he knows his letter sounds quite well.

YOU’LL LOVE THIS PRACTICAL BOOK!

Looking for an easy-to-read guide to help you reach all readers? If you teach kindergarten through third grade, this is the book for you. Get practical ideas and lesson plan templates that you can implement tomorrow!

GET YOUR COPY TODAY!

Get your free beginning sound picture sorts!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

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Join our email list and get this sample pack of time-saving resources from our membership site! You'll get phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension resources ... all free!

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Filed Under: Letter sounds, Spelling, Alphabet Tagged With: first grade, kindergarten, letter sounds

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Reader Interactions

76 Comments

  1. Lauren

    September 12, 2020 at 10:59 pm

    Your resources are simply amazing! I always know you will have EXACTLY what I am looking for on your site. I can’t help but share your website with whatever teacher or homeschooling mom I am collaborating with. Whenever someone asks me where I found my materials…9 out of 10 times it is The Measured Mom. Thank you for all the hard work you put in to every email, post and resource!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      September 13, 2020 at 6:38 am

      Thank you, Lauren … that is so kind of you to say!

      Reply to this comment
  2. Allison

    November 11, 2019 at 1:36 pm

    Your resources are soooo amazing! I recently decided to stay home with my kids after my youngest was born and I want to get a good start for my older son before kindergarten. Not being a child educator by profession makes it harder to make sure I am going about teaching in the best possible way. Your resources are a extremely helpful in guiding my approach! Thank you so much for sharing!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      November 15, 2019 at 3:12 pm

      This is so wonderful to hear, Allison! Thank you so much for your comment!

      Reply to this comment
  3. Melissa

    October 4, 2019 at 2:30 pm

    I absolutely love this! I use Words Their Way at my school, but found this beneficial as having a second resource encourages kids to discover the beginning sound instead of memorizing where each picture should go. Thank you so much for enhancing instruction.

    Reply to this comment
  4. Maria

    March 15, 2019 at 11:30 am

    Hey!

    This is amazing work! I used it to do an activity in my current nursery while of course giving this website full credit and forwarded this website to many of fellow Early Years practitioners!

    Needless to say, you have been a great place for resources!
    Thanks a ton,
    Maria
    Studying to become a nursery teacher!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      March 17, 2019 at 7:09 am

      Thank you so much, Maria!

      Reply to this comment
  5. Katie

    January 25, 2019 at 7:07 pm

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!! I can say on behalf of myself and several teachers I know that we are so grateful for your willingness to share such fabulous resources! The world is better because you are in it!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      February 2, 2019 at 4:47 pm

      You’re very welcome, Katie!

      Reply to this comment
  6. Kaystey

    January 15, 2019 at 5:16 pm

    I am so thankful for these resources! I’m excited about teaching Guided Reading more than ever! About to start the new year in Australia…

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      January 23, 2019 at 7:12 am

      I’m so glad you like them, Kaystey!

      Reply to this comment
  7. Liora

    December 11, 2018 at 10:47 am

    My Kindergartener has been struggling to keep up with her older classmates. I’m so glad I found your site! Your letter activities have been so helpful!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      December 13, 2018 at 5:19 pm

      I’m so glad this helped you, Liora!

      Reply to this comment
  8. Anne

    November 18, 2018 at 8:36 pm

    These are a lifesaver in my kindergarten classroom! Thanks so much for creating such quality resources to share. Would you ever consider organizing these by individual letter sounds so I could mix and match based on the needs of my students? For example I am working with a group that needs help distinguishing between g and d beginning sounds.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      November 19, 2018 at 9:24 am

      I’ll put that on my “to do” list as a subscriber freebie. 🙂 If you’re not already receiving the newsletter, make sure you sign up so you get the notification when it’s ready.

      Reply to this comment
  9. Sheba Ambush

    October 2, 2018 at 8:20 am

    Thank you so much for the FREE PRINTABLES. My classroom will enjoy the new games that you allow me to printable for their enjoyment.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 3, 2018 at 7:19 am

      You’re welcome, Sheba!

      Reply to this comment
  10. Annette

    October 1, 2018 at 7:07 am

    Thank you so much for all the wonderful freebees that you send out!! My grandson loves these and have helped him with starting out in Kindergarten!
    You are amazing!!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 1, 2018 at 4:25 pm

      You’re very welcome, Annette!

      Reply to this comment
  11. Jo

    September 30, 2018 at 2:45 pm

    Amazing! Thank you so much! Money is so tight in school so I find it hard to find things unless I’m signed up monthly and paying. These resources are wonderful. 🙂

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 23, 2018 at 5:45 am

      I’m so glad you’re enjoying my freebies, Jo! 🙂

      Reply to this comment
  12. Erica Cunningham

    September 30, 2018 at 10:20 am

    I like this set. I think I’ll put Velcro stickers on the header and pictures and on the board. My daughter thinks Velcro is fun. This is a great resource, though. Thank you so much.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 23, 2018 at 5:46 am

      I’m glad you’ve got a way to make this work for you, Erica!

      Reply to this comment
  13. Maseye Joseph Kevins.

    September 30, 2018 at 9:14 am

    Hello Anna,
    Its very awesome! You are a great resource to the society. Will you be blessed!
    Maseye Joseph Kevins.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 23, 2018 at 5:46 am

      Thank you so much!

      Reply to this comment
  14. Rhena

    September 30, 2018 at 8:02 am

    Thank you very much!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 23, 2018 at 5:46 am

      You’re welcome, Rhena!

      Reply to this comment
  15. Deloris Spaulding

    September 30, 2018 at 7:30 am

    Wonderful ideas Anna…thank u for sharing…I’ll definitely be using it for my class activities

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 23, 2018 at 5:46 am

      I’m so glad you can use these, Deloris!

      Reply to this comment
  16. Louise

    September 9, 2018 at 3:34 pm

    Lovely resource! I really like the clip art. Do you mind telling me where you got it? I find it so hard to find child friendly clip art like that!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      September 9, 2018 at 4:23 pm

      I get nearly all my clip art on Teachers Pay Teachers; I think most of this set is from Whimsy Workshop Teaching.

      Reply to this comment
  17. Kusum

    May 21, 2018 at 7:11 am

    Love these Anna especially at the end of the school year because they know the sounds of the letters ,thank you very much!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      June 2, 2018 at 2:38 pm

      You’re welcome, Kusum!

      Reply to this comment
  18. Rhonda

    December 4, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    You’re awesome! Thank you so much!!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      December 6, 2017 at 7:16 am

      You’re very welcome, Rhonda!

      Reply to this comment
  19. Elena

    November 12, 2017 at 5:17 pm

    Thank you very much for the freebie!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      November 16, 2017 at 5:24 pm

      You’re very welcome, Elena!

      Reply to this comment
  20. Katrina

    November 3, 2017 at 5:16 am

    Love this activity. Thanks for sharing!!!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      November 4, 2017 at 7:16 am

      You’re very welcome, Katrina!

      Reply to this comment
  21. j

    October 20, 2017 at 7:24 am

    Thank you!! 🙂 I’m a teacher of K and my students and I have benefited from your hard work for a few years now! Thanks again! 🙂

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 21, 2017 at 11:09 am

      You’re very welcome! I hope you find many helpful resources on my site.

      Reply to this comment
  22. sharon

    September 8, 2017 at 12:32 pm

    Thank you for your amazing site and information. I’m using your printables for my speech students who have articulation issues. Pictures are big, love the game format etc.

    Thanks for sharing

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 7, 2017 at 6:54 pm

      You’re very welcome, Sharon! I hope you find many helpful resources on my site.

      Reply to this comment
  23. Heather Janzen

    August 21, 2017 at 1:06 pm

    Thank you so much, I am just preparing for my class and these sorts will be very helpful. I really appreciate it.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      September 4, 2017 at 9:29 am

      You’re very welcome, Heather! Thank you so much for the kind words!

      Reply to this comment
  24. glenda

    August 11, 2017 at 10:24 am

    thank you for your amazing site – you have helped me so much!!!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      August 19, 2017 at 3:35 pm

      It makes me so glad to hear that, Glenda!

      Reply to this comment
  25. Catherine

    May 22, 2017 at 12:29 pm

    Anna,
    Thank you so much for your wonderful site and for all of these resources. I am a former primary teacher and now stay at home mom. I use your site weekly when working with my own children. I like to supplement what they do in school in an organized fashion. I couldn’t do that without your help. After seven years away from teaching, I’m returning to the classroom as a part time K5 assistant this fall. I’ve already told the teacher about your site!
    Thank you!
    Catherine

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      May 22, 2017 at 5:25 pm

      Yay – I’m so glad you’re finding resources here, Catherine, and thank you for passing along my site!

      Reply to this comment
  26. Libby

    February 11, 2017 at 8:20 pm

    I love the beg sort mats and use with my prek class. I wish you had the vowels included but great set.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      February 12, 2017 at 7:00 am

      I don’t include the vowels in this set of beginning sorts because there are hardly any pictures for words that begin with short vowel sounds. For example, for short u you have umbrella, underwear, and up. However, I do have long and short vowel mats which focus on MIDDLE vowel sounds, which makes more sense this is how kids hear them in most words anyway: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/free-sorting-mats-for-short-and-long-vowels/

      Reply to this comment
  27. Cathie

    November 26, 2016 at 12:53 pm

    These are going to be so helpful with my grade 3 student who speaks no English and has never been to school before.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      November 28, 2016 at 11:26 am

      Yay – I’m so glad you can use these, Cathie!

      Reply to this comment
  28. J spangler

    October 24, 2016 at 10:32 pm

    Won’t open/download. So looking forward to it

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      October 25, 2016 at 11:11 am

      Did you see the box that says “Is the file not downloading or not printing correctly”? It has tips that work 99% of the time.

      Reply to this comment
  29. Jamale

    October 4, 2016 at 7:30 pm

    Thank you so much for this awesome resource!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      October 7, 2016 at 5:24 pm

      You’re very welcome, Jamale!

      Reply to this comment
  30. Wanda

    September 10, 2016 at 11:47 am

    Thank you for the free resources. They are so helpful!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 11, 2016 at 8:20 pm

      You’re very welcome, Wanda!

      Reply to this comment
  31. Jeanne Rumbley

    September 8, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    Anna, I am a Mema to 3 precious grandchildren, and I have been following your blog for probably 2 years now. I have used so many of your worksheets with them. One has just started Kindergarten, one is in 1st grade, and then my big guy is a 3rd grader this year. Do you think that the beginning sound picture sort would be challenging to the Kindergarten-er or would this be something more for preschool age? I think that it would just be good reinforcement.
    I taught public school for 31 years, am retired, and still love doing “learning” with my grands because of people like you who share so much. I did not teach little children; I taught 4th and 6th grade for 9 years; then I moved up to 8th grade to teach language arts; I completed my career with 9th graders teaching (trying) to teach them English. I love grammar and sentence which they did not, but have come back to tell me they were glad I did.
    Sorry to go on and on!!
    I appreciate all your time, concern, and effort….and love for teaching.
    Blessings,
    Mema Jeanne
    Eden, NC

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 8, 2016 at 5:33 pm

      Hello! I think that these are probably better suited to kindergartners rather than preschoolers because of the cutting involved and the difficulty of the latter sorts in the pack. But I don’t have a kindergartner right now. 🙂 They would even be good for first graders who are struggling to remember letter sounds.

      Reply to this comment
  32. Debbie Goodenow

    September 8, 2016 at 11:21 am

    We are implementing the Words Their Way system for spelling in our first through fourth grade classes at our small private school. I am working with two first graders in the late emergent stage. These sorts are perfect because it will give my two little guys something to cut out when the others get to cut their words. Thanks so much for all the work you put into this. They wanted to know when they could cut something. I did have one problem printing them. The dotted lines around the pictures did not print. Might this be a problem on my end or do you have any ideas why. The lines show up in the .pdf document but they did not print. I have printed tons of .pdf documents before. So I think I am doing it correctly.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 8, 2016 at 11:24 am

      Are you printing with the free Adobe Reader? If you save the file to your computer (choose right click and save file as) and then open and print with Adobe Reader, it should solve the problem. Let me know if it doesn’t!

      Reply to this comment
      • Debbie Goodenow

        September 8, 2016 at 5:10 pm

        Printed fine at home. Thanks again for the resource and your help.

        Reply to this comment
        • Anna Geiger

          September 8, 2016 at 5:32 pm

          Glad to hear it!

          Reply to this comment
  33. Kathryn Booher

    September 7, 2016 at 9:09 pm

    I love your resources and use them often in my kindergarten class! It’s so generous of you to provide so many of them for free! My kinders would have trouble cutting out the pictures on this activity without the dotted line boxes around them. The activity I printed dos not have the boxes. Could you please provide one? Thank you so much!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 7, 2016 at 9:13 pm

      Make sure you save the file to your computer and then open and print with the free Adobe Reader. You’ll find this tip in the troubleshooting link underneath the download link. It usually solves printing errors, but let me know if it doesn’t.

      Reply to this comment
  34. Arminda Rodrigues

    September 7, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    Thank you very much for all your freebies and wonderful ideas. I am using them in my classroom.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 8, 2016 at 5:32 pm

      I’m so glad to hear that, Arminda!

      Reply to this comment
  35. Maria

    September 7, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful ideas with us.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 8, 2016 at 5:31 pm

      You’re welcome, Maria – thanks for reading!

      Reply to this comment
  36. Katie @ Gift of Curiosity

    September 5, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    What an awesome resource you are providing Anna!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 8, 2016 at 5:31 pm

      Thank you, Katie!

      Reply to this comment

Trackbacks

  1. Beginning blend clip cards - The Measured Mom says:
    September 19, 2020 at 5:11 pm

    […]      […]

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  2. Free Printables to Practice Beginning Sounds – freebie printables says:
    January 13, 2020 at 11:57 am

    […] 18 free picture sorts for beginning sounds […]

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  3. K-2 Phonics Skills List - free printable list! - This Reading Mama says:
    May 18, 2017 at 6:39 am

    […] Sorts for Beginning Sounds […]

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