Onset Sounds

Early childhood teachers spend lots of time teaching and instructing phonological awareness skills. Keeping it fun and engaging is important! I’ve gathered some of my favorite activities to work specifically on onset sounds. As a refresher, here’s a simple definition of onset and rime from Reading Rockets:

“The “onset” is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. /c/ in cat) and the term “rime” refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. /a/ /t/ in cat). Not all words have onsets.” (Reading Rockets, 2023).

When working with our budding readers, we spend lots of time practicing this skill. Read on for some fun ways to work on onset sound identification!

Rhyming Books

We all have our favorite go-to rhyming books. Silly Tilly by Eileen Spinelli (above) is a book that’s sure to make your youngest readers laugh out loud. Pause to work with the rhyming words included in the book. (T: “/t/ plus illy makes…?” S: “Tilly!”) (T: “Pants rhymes with…?” S: “Dance and France!”)

Other fun rhyming books that lend themselves to onset + rime practice:

Onset Sounds Task Cards

Practice a variety of skills using onset sound task cards – students will work on letter identification, letter formation, and fine motor skills as well as onset sound identification.

Four different types of task cards are included in this product. Students can use clip cards to clip the appropriate letter, allowing them to work on onset sounds, letter identification, and fine motor skills. In the Blank Space version, students can use a write-erase marker to practice writing the letter (working on letter formation) or use letter tiles to mark the correct letter.

In the Just Pictures version, you can solely focus on helping your students identify the onset sound without adding in additional skills of letter identification. Finally, in the Onset + Rime edition, students use a dry erase marker or letter tile to complete the words by adding in the onsets.

Task cards are perfect for small groups or intervention. They’re super easy to store and come with their own visual directions, making them accessible to all of your learners.

Onset Sound Mats

Onset Sound Mats are another way to work on onset sounds in a hands-on way. These mats feature a variety of one-syllable words with single consonants as the onsets, like pot, zip, tie, and hand. Your students can match letter tiles, like Bananagrams, to the correct spots, OR you can keep the focus solely on onset sounds and use tools like stamps or Do a Dot markers to mark off the letters as students identify their onset sounds.

You can play by having students say the picture out loud, identify its onset sound, and then cover up that picture. Or, you can make it a mystery game by saying “I’m thinking of a picture that starts with “/p/” and ends with “-ot” and have students find and cover the correct picture! Lots of fun ways to play, and perfect for small group intervention.

Michael Heggerty – Daily Phonemic Awareness Practice

Michael Heggerty is my GO TO for phonemic awareness instruction and practice. It has an easy-to-follow format, and combined with hand movements, it’s engaging and quick. It takes around ten to fifteen minutes to work through the day’s phonemic awareness skills, and you can even break them down into smaller chunks of time. By following this book, you know you’re working through all the important phonemic awareness skills with your young learners!

Of course, this is just one part of your daily literacy instruction, but it’s a great routine to use in your classroom or at home. There are early preK, preK, and kindergarten books, along with their primary sets.

Sing Silly Alliteration Songs

Identifying onset sounds is about hearing and isolating those beginning sounds, so songs can be an excellent way to practice this.  Search online for “alliteration songs for preK/kindergarten” or check out a book with these popular songs for the full lyrics.  Try these songs, and help your child or students practice finding the onset sounds in the words as you go!

Here’s some of my favorites:

• Miss Mary Mack
• Wishy Washy Washer Woman
• Pepperoni Pizza

(If you’re looking for easy ways to explain literacy skills, included onset sounds, and home practice ideas, you may like my resource Parent Handouts. Common kindergarten literacy skills are explained in parent-friendly language, and four ideas for each skill are included.)

I hope this blog post gives you some ideas to think about to work on onset sounds with your students, at home or at school!