Sounds before letters

Before a child can match letters to sounds, they have to hear that words are made of sounds at all. That is a listening skill, and it grows from play: rhymes, silly words, and "what does it start with?"

Play it by ear, with nothing written down. "Cat, hat, bat — which one doesn't belong: cat, hat, sun?" "Let's find something that starts like moon." A wrong guess is just another turn.

Rhymes come first for most children, then the first sound of a word, then the sounds in the middle. SoundTots and RhymeReef play this same ladder.