- bag
- pictures of simple objects (some that begin with the /e/ sound, and some that do not)
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Foundational Skills/RF.PK.MA.2.c: Identify the initial sound of a spoken word and, with guidance and support, generate several other words that have the same initial sound.
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/Receptive Language: Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
Literacy Knowledge/Phonological Awareness: Identifies and discriminates between sounds and phonemes in language, such as attention to beginning and ending sounds of words and recognition that different words begin or end with the same sound.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Reading and Literature 8: Listen to, identify, and manipulate language sounds to develop auditory discrimination and phonemic awareness.
Learn About Letter Sounds Together: Bag of Sounds (/e/)
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
ELA Focus Skills: Follow Directions, Phonological Awareness, Speaking and Listening
Review with children the /e/ sound. Ask children to name words with the /e/ sound.
Tell children they are going to pull picture cards from the bag. Explain that they will make two piles with the cards: one pile will have pictures that begins with the /e/ sound and one will have pictures that begin with other letter sounds.
- Ask a volunteer to pull a picture from the bag and name it. (egg)
- Have the group repeat the word, emphasizing the beginning /e/ sound.
- Then ask the volunteer what letter sound the word egg begins with.
- Ask, What pile does the word egg go in?
- Repeat the process until each child has had a chance to draw a picture from the bag and place it in a pile.
- Finally, hold up each /e/ sound picture, one at a time, and have children say it aloud in unison.
Educator Tip: Guided and independent letter, sound, and word practice continues to take place in center activities. It is helpful to set up the literacy center immediately after the direct instruction and repeat instruction before children work in the literacy center identifying letters.