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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.

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76 Comments

  1. Lauren

    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

  2. Allison

    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

  3. Melissa

    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

    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

  5. Katie

    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

  8. Anne

    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

  25. Catherine

    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

  31. Jeanne Rumbley

    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

      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

    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

  33. Kathryn Booher

    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

      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

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