Initial Sound Activities for the Early Years

Make learning the ABCs as easy as 1-2-3… or as easy as drag and drop! 

This digital alphabet sorting activity has been designed to help little learners develop letter-sound correspondence by matching images to their initial sound.

To play, students work their way through each letter of the alphabet, clicking and dragging items that begin with each letter sound. Note: The letter x slide focuses on the end sound, rather than the initial sound.

Students will show they understand one-to-one letter-sound correspondences through this activity while simultaneously working on dexterity and computer skills.

Scaffolding + Extension Tips 

A team of dedicated, experienced educators created this resource to support your phonics lessons. 

In addition to individual student work time, use this literacy game to enhance learning through guided reading groups, whole-class lessons, or remote learning assignments. 

As all early years classrooms have a mix of above and below-level learners, we have a few suggestions for keeping all of your students on track with these concepts.

🆘 Support Struggling Students

The number of images on the slide may be overwhelming for some students. For students needing fewer choices to sort from, delete an image or two from each slide before assigning.

➕ Challenge Fast Finishers

Encourage students to identify the initial sound of the other images on the slide that do not begin with the focus letter.

🧑‍🏫 Class Activity

Project the slides onto a screen and work through them as a class using choral response, or have students come up to the board to move the words into the boxes. 

Easily Prepare This Resource for Your Students

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to choose between the Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint versions of this resource. 

Be sure to work with the document in Edit mode, rather than Presentation/Slideshow mode, in order to access the interactive features.