My son (age 5) is really beginning to understand how sounds in words work (as known as phonological awareness). He wants to know how words are spelled and asks me quite often about sounds in words. I simply adore how curious he is.
After working through all our letter sounds last year with Reading the Alphabet, this year he was ready for more of a challenge, listening for beginning and ending sounds. Once I felt he had those under his belt, I decided to try beginning blends with him just to see how he’d do, so I created this Beginning Blend BINGO game (free download at the end of post).
We had a great time playing it!
Listening For Blends in Words
The first thing I did before we played was go through each beginning blend picture card and say the name of the picture very slowly. I stretched out the sounds, especially the sound of the blend, like this s-k-ate. I asked him, “Can you hear /s/ and /k/ in that word? Say it slowly with me.”
We did this for about half the picture cards and I quickly noticed he was getting it. (I made sure and pointed out that scarf and skate both start with the same sounds. I showed him each word on the picture card to help him see that one starts with sc while the other starts with sk, since they would both sound exactly the same.)
Playing Beginning Blend BINGO
We each chose a game board. I shuffled the picture cards and put them in a pile face down. One at a time, we would pick the top card and name the object pictured. I was sure each time to really emphasize the beginning blend. If he needed help, I would show him the letters in the word. The purpose of playing this game the first time together wasn’t mastery. I knew he wasn’t quite ready for that. The purpose was to simply introduce listening for those beginning blend sounds in a fun and meaningful way. I plan on doing more of this with him in the weeks to come. And you can bet that this Beginning Blend BINGO game will make a reappearance! 😉
Do you have a reader who is ready for more BINGO fun? Then, you may want to purchase my 62-page Phonics BINGO Bundle Pack.
You can read more about it by clicking HERE or on the image above.
To download the FREE Beginning Blend Bingo Pack, click HERE!
Love this! Am printing right now to use tomorrow with my first graders. Thank you! Thanks for sharing at After School!
This could not have come at a better time!! Thank you so much, My son will love it!
This looks fantastic! It is so nice to finally read a blog that is more than just an advertisement for a Teachers Pay Teachers store. I love everything I’ve seen so far and just want to say thanks!
You cannot even begin to understand how much this comment made my day! Thanks!
I stumbled across your website and it was truly a blessing! I can’t stop reading, printing and browsing everything you have to offer! Such quality stuff and the fact that a lot is free or very reasonable makes homeschooling for me personally much easier and fun! Just when I was beginning to doubt myself and feel overwhelmed, I found your website. THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS you for sharing your talent!! Hats off to you for homeschooling 4 kids and having the skill to run this site in addition to everything else you have to manage in your day! Bravo!!! Keep up the amazing work!!
You’re so welcome. What a blessing to be a blessing to others. 🙂
Thank you so much for this! By any chance do you have a version without the words written so the kids have to listen for the beginning blend? Thanks.
I do not at this time.