Phonics Fun: Circle the Beginning Sound Worksheet for Preschoolers
This worksheet builds phonemic awareness by asking children to listen for a picture's beginning sound and circle the letter that matches it, a core early-reading skill that connects spoken sounds to written letters. For ages 4-5, this kind of sound-to-letter matching is one of the clearest predictors of later reading success, since it requires isolating individual sounds within a spoken word.
Part of the pack
Month 6: Toddler Preschool Foundational Skills | Ages Up to 4
This is page 4 of the pack. Ages 2-4 · PreschoolAges 2-4 · NurseryAges 2-4
Made for your child
Numbers to 20, made for your child
A maths pack with your child's name in it: pictures that explain, practice at three levels, puzzles and story sums about them. Print a new set whenever they finish.
Make a maths packFree preview · free for members
Curriculum
- Phonics - Letter Sounds > Beginning Sounds
How to use this worksheet
Look at the first picture together and ask your child to say its name slowly and clearly, emphasizing the very first sound they hear. Show your child the letter choices in that box and ask them to think about which letter makes the sound they just said. Have your child circle the letter that matches the beginning sound of the picture's name. Continue through each remaining picture the same way, sounding out each word slowly before circling the matching letter.
Materials needed
- Pencil
- Crayons
Extension activities
- 1Play an 'I spy' game around the house, finding objects that start with a specific sound your child names.
- 2Sort picture cards into piles based on their beginning sounds, one pile per letter.
- 3Draw a new picture of something that starts with the same sound as one from the worksheet.
- 4Practice with a mirror, watching mouth shapes as you both say different beginning sounds together.
- 5Make up a silly sentence using several words that all start with the same sound, like 'Sally sees six silly snakes.'
Written by
Hemsweta Jain · Teacher Cheena
MBA and Early Childhood Educator, teaching since 2014 · Founder of RaisoActive, Mumbai
Every RaisoActive worksheet is designed and checked by the founder before publishing.
Published · Last reviewed
More from Month 6: Toddler Preschool Foundational Skills | Ages Up to 4
Above and Below the Sea Worksheet: Counting Objects
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
This worksheet combines counting practice with the positional concepts of 'above' and 'below,' asking children to count separate groups of objects located in different parts of an ocean scene. For ages 3-5, connecting counting to spatial position adds an extra layer of thinking beyond simple one-to-one counting, reinforcing both numeracy and early positional vocabulary.
Togetherness Jar Worksheet: Fill with Family Moments!
Ages 3-6 · Preschool–KindergartenAges 3-6 · Nursery–Year 1Ages 3-6 · Nursery–UKGAges 3-6
This worksheet encourages children to reflect on specific, meaningful moments spent with family members and put those memories into words, building both emotional awareness and early narrative writing skills. For ages 3-6, the hands-on jar-making element also connects abstract reflection to a tangible, ongoing keepsake, reinforcing that family connection is something worth noticing and recording.
Eco-Ganesha Craft: Make Your Own Eco-Friendly Ganesh!
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
Making an Eco-Ganesha from peepal leaves teaches children ages 3-5 to see natural materials as creative art supplies, building both fine motor skill through careful arrangement and early environmental awareness through using biodegradable materials instead of plastic. This hands-on craft also introduces cultural and seasonal tradition in a tactile, memorable way that connects art-making to real-world values.
Match the Bird Shadows Worksheet for Preschoolers
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
Matching bird pictures to their correct shadows sharpens visual discrimination for children ages 3-5, requiring them to focus on outline and shape rather than color or detail, since a shadow strips away everything but silhouette. This kind of shape-matching task builds the careful observation skills that support later letter and word recognition, where subtle shape differences also matter.
Trace and Color the Letter Q Worksheet for Preschoolers
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
This worksheet builds handwriting readiness for the less common letter Q through repeated tracing, while the coloring activity reinforces vocabulary for Q words, which are often trickier for young children since Q almost always pairs with U. For ages 3-5, practicing an uncommon letter like Q broadens their full alphabet exposure beyond the more frequently seen letters.
Trace and Color the Letter N Worksheet for Preschoolers
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
Tracing the letter 'N' repeatedly helps children ages 3-5 build the muscle memory needed for consistent, legible letter formation, since 'N' requires a specific up-down-up stroke pattern that differs from rounded letters. Coloring pictures that start with 'N' extends the practice into beginning-sound recognition, linking the letter's shape to a specific sound they can hear at the start of familiar words.
This or That? Cut and Paste Worksheet for Early Learners
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
Sorting objects into 'this' and 'that' categories helps children ages 3-5 connect an abstract grammar concept to something they can physically place and see, reinforcing the idea that these words describe relative closeness rather than a fixed rule. This early categorization practice also builds general sorting and decision-making skills that extend well beyond grammar itself.
Front and Back Matching Worksheet for Preschoolers
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
This cut-and-paste worksheet builds spatial reasoning by asking children to recognize that many objects and animals look different from the front versus the back, and to match each front view to its correct back view. For ages 3-5, this kind of visual matching strengthens observational skills and the beginning of perspective-taking, understanding that the same object can look different depending on which side you're viewing.
Related worksheets
M-R Phonic Beginning Sound Worksheet: Circle the Correct Letter!
Ages 4-6 · Pre-K–KindergartenAges 4-6 · Reception–Year 1Ages 4-6 · LKG–UKGAges 4-6
This phonics worksheet focuses children ages 4-6 on distinguishing between five similar beginning sounds — M, P, O, R, and N — by having them look at a picture, say its name, and circle the correct starting letter from those choices. Including several letters as answer options, rather than just one, makes this a meaningfully harder discrimination task than a single-letter worksheet, since children must rule out close-sounding alternatives.
Phonics Fun: Color, Draw, and Write! (Ages 3-5)
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
Coloring a picture, drawing a related object, and writing its first letter combines three literacy-building tasks in one activity for children ages 3-5 — visual recognition, creative expression, and beginning-sound identification.
Initial Sound Match: Cut and Paste Worksheet
Ages 4-5 · Pre-KAges 4-5 · ReceptionAges 4-5 · LKGAges 4-5
Children ages 4-5 develop phonemic awareness by identifying the beginning sound of each pictured object and matching it to the correct letter, a critical pre-reading skill for connecting sounds to symbols. This cut-and-paste format adds fine motor practice with scissors and glue alongside the phonics work. Recognizing initial sounds is one of the strongest early predictors of later reading success.
Say My Sound: Beginning Letter Worksheet for Preschoolers
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
This is a companion beginning-sounds sheet with a new set of pictures, giving your child more practice isolating the first sound of a word — a skill that only really sticks with repeated exposure across different words, not a single worksheet. Circling instead of coloring the answer keeps the response quick and low-effort, so more of the session goes toward the listening task itself.
C, D, E Letter Sounds Worksheet: Circle and Count!
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
This activity gives children ages 3-5 focused practice recognizing the beginning sounds of the letters C, D, and E, asking them to circle matching pictures in different colors for each letter before counting the results. Combining phonics with counting means children practice two skills in one sitting: identifying initial letter sounds and recording a numeric total, both foundational for kindergarten readiness. Color-coding each letter also helps children visually organize the three sounds instead of mixing them together.
Letter Recognition Worksheet: Circle the Objects Starting with Y and N!
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
This worksheet builds letter-sound correspondence for the letters Y and N by having children identify and circle only the pictures whose names begin with those specific sounds. For three- to five-year-olds, practicing two letters side by side, rather than just one, adds a layer of discrimination — children must correctly identify which of two different sounds a word starts with, not just recognize a single target sound.
Vocabulary Worksheet: Circle the Objects That Start with the Letter!
Ages 4-6 · Pre-K–KindergartenAges 4-6 · Reception–Year 1Ages 4-6 · LKG–UKGAges 4-6
This worksheet reinforces letter-sound recognition for children ages 4-6 by presenting a target letter and asking them to identify which pictures in a row begin with that sound. Unlike single-picture beginning sound tasks, scanning an entire row of images and filtering for matches builds sustained visual attention alongside phonics, since children must reject several near-matches before finding the correct ones.
Phonics Fun: Write the First Letter and Draw! (Ages 3-5)
Ages 3-5 · Preschool–Pre-KAges 3-5 · Nursery–ReceptionAges 3-5 · Nursery–LKGAges 3-5
This worksheet asks children ages 3-5 to identify a picture's beginning sound and write the matching letter, then draw their own picture for extra practice, combining phonemic awareness with early letter formation. Writing the letter by hand, rather than just circling it, demands more fine motor control and reinforces the sound-symbol link more deeply than recognition alone. The open-ended drawing task also lets children apply the same beginning sound to a word of their own choosing.
Guides for this topic
How to Teach CVC Blending: A Step-by-Step Method That Works in Two Weeks
A step-by-step method for teaching CVC blending, covering continuous sounds, word families, common errors, and a 14-day plan that most children finish reading CVC words.
Best Worksheets for 3-Year-Olds: What Works and What to Avoid
What works on worksheets for 3-year-olds: short sessions, crayons, tracing lines, matching, cutting, a free weekly plan, and signs one is too advanced.
Phase 2 Phonics at Home: Sound Order, Blending Games, Worksheets
Phase 2 phonics at home: the five sound sets in order, oral blending, tricky words, a two-week routine, common mistakes, and free worksheets.
Reviews
Every worksheet for ages 4–5, no watermark
Members download the full library of 1,000+ worksheets and every activity pack without watermarks or daily limits. One year costs ₹999 in India or $20 elsewhere.
See membership plansOr download any worksheet free with a watermark (5 a day).