Beginning sounds game: First Sound

What First Sound practices

First Sound practices hearing the first sound in a spoken word. Your child hears a sound and chooses the picture whose name starts with it from three pictures.

The target sound also appears as a letter or letter group with dashes, such as s _ _. Your child can answer by listening and choosing a picture, without reading a whole word. Name unfamiliar pictures together so the task is about their sounds rather than guessing what the pictures mean.

Who it suits

Children exploring the first sounds of familiar spoken words. Try a round together and explain what “starts with” means. Pause to name an unfamiliar picture or model the question if your child is unsure.

How a round goes

Your child listens to “Which one starts with…” and the sound, then taps a picture. A wrong picture wiggles and the game says “Try again”, with nothing pointing at the answer, so the next try is still real listening. The speaker button replays the question whenever it is needed.

Each round is one sound, and the next begins by itself after a short celebration. A ring of five takes a minute or two.

A tip for home

Play “I spy” with sounds instead of letters: “I spy something that starts with /s/.” Say the sound short and crisp, /s/ rather than “suh”, so it matches the sound your child hears in the game.

Try next

• Sound Sort — hunts for every picture with a sound, at the start or at the end.
• Do you hear it? — listens for a sound hiding in the middle of a word, too.
• Say the Sound — links each sound to the letter that writes it.
• Clap the Parts — listens for a bigger piece than a sound: the beats in a spoken word.

More from “Listening for sounds”

• Same or Different? — Hear whether two words sound the same.

Read more

Behind in reading, or a late bloomer?: where hearing sounds in words fits among the early reading guideposts.