Kilcommins' Kindergarten: Making the connection between letters & sounds

One of the most important skills for children to develop in the kindergarten year is the recognition that letters and sounds are related. We often call this "the alphabetic principle," which is the notion that speech sounds can be connected to letters in a predictable way.

Part of our daily routine is practicing letter names and their associated sounds with our FUNDATIONS cards. This is a fun part of morning meeting the children look forward to. We use the letter cards as the teacher says the letter name, names a picture, and the gives the sound. The children ECHO what the teacher has said.

Teacher: " B bat /b/"

Children (all together): " B bat /b/"

We have been working on identifying the beginning sounds the children hear in words. Below are pictures of one of the activities the children enjoyed. They were asked to pick a letter (or 2) to draw a picture the begins with the given letter.