How to Use Beginning Sound Clip Cards Featuring CVC Words

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Use these CVC Beginning Sound Clip Cards to help your kids hear and see the beginning sounds in words. The beginning sounds clip cards are extremely versatile and can be used for rhyming words activities, beginning letter sound activities, initial phone isolation activities, and initial phoneme deletion activities.

beginning sound clip cards featuring the CVC word map.  The letter m clip is attached to the card to build the word map.

Your kids will love these hands-on early literacy activities.

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Phonics vs Phonemic Awareness

There is a lot of confusion regarding the difference between phonics versus phonemic awareness activities. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words while phonics is correlating those sounds with letters.

You can use these beginning sound clip cards with simple, easily decodable CVC words to work on both phonemic awareness and phonics instruction.

A beginning sound clip card featuring the CVC word tub.  Kids can use this to work on isolating  and manipulating initial phonemes and phonics instruction in CVC words

Use the printable beginning sound clip cards for many literacy activities

The printable picture cards were designed for beginning sound activities, but they can be used for a variety of literacy activities.

Rhyming words activities

After you teach rhyming words to your kids, these printables are great rhyming activities that provide a great way to practice the important skill. The sets include cards for 17 different CVC word families.

As you work with a set of cards, they can hear and see that the words share the same ending.

The following CVC word families are included:  ot, -op, -en, -et, ed, ig, in, ip, am, at, an, ag, ap, ug, ub, ut, and un.

Does a little bit of completion motivate your kids? Some teachers like to use the cards for rhyming games.

CVC initial phoneme or beginning sound clip card sets for a variety of CVC word families

Letter Sounds Activity

As you start introducing your kids to letter sounds, you can use this activity to help your kids understand the alphabetic principle ….that the sounds in words match to the letters in those words.

A CVC beginning sounds clip cards set being used for letter sound activities

Initial Phoneme Isolation Activities

As your kids look at one of the pictures, say the word and ask your kids, “What sound do you hear at the beginning of map?” The answer is the /m/.

Beginning sound clip cards to teach initial phoneme isolation.

After determining the beginning sound, you can show them how the letter m makes the /m/ sound and makes the word map when added to -ap.

Adding Initial Phoneme Activities

Ask your kids to say the ending on a card, then ask them to add a sound to the beginning . For example, “Let’s start by saying -at. What word do we make when we add the /b/ sound to -at?” The answer is bat! After your kids tell you the word, you can show them how to create the word by adding the letter b to the clip card.

Initial Phoneme Deletion Activities

You can easily use the printable activity set to practice deleting initial phonemes in words. Start with a word card and ask your kids to say the word featured on the card. Challenge them to tell you what is left when they remove the initial sound.

“Let’s start by saying van. Now, what word do you get when you remove the /v/ sound?” The answer is an.

beginning sound clip card featuring the CVC word van.  A letter v is added to an to make the word van.

Then, you can show your kids how the word changes when you remove the letter at the beginning of the word on the card.

Manipulating or Changing the Initial Phoneme

You can use the beginning sound clip cards to practice manipulating initial phonemes to create new words in a hands-on way.

Prep a set of cards for one CVC word family. Ask your kids to say the word on the first card. Then ask them to tell you what the word is when they change the initial sound.

Let’s use the -an family as an example. “Say the word pan. Now change the /p/ sound at the start of the word to a /v/ sound. What is the new word?” The answer is van. “Now, change the beginning sound to /f/. What is the new word?” The answer is fan.

beginning sound clip cards featuring the an word family

How to Assemble the Begining Sound Clip Cards

Now that I gave you a bunch of ideas for activities, I want to show you how to assemble the printable activity. The good news is that, much like the rhyming clip cards, these are easy to assemble.  Print, laminate, and cut out the cards on the dotted lines.

Want to bind the sets together by word family? Add a cover, hole punch the cards, and then add a binder ring.

The set includes printable beginning sound letter circles for each card.  You can attach these letters to the open end of a clothespin clip with hot glue.

How to assemble the beginning sound clip cards after you print them.  The picture shows you how to add printable letters to clothespin clips with hook and loop tape.

If you don’t want to make a clip for every single card, you can add some hook and loop tape to the back of the letters and to the clothespins.  This way, you can attach the letters to the clothespins as you need them.  You can also add hook and loop tape to the back of a set set to store the letters when they are not in use.

One teacher told me that she skipped the clothespins and just added some hook and loop to the circle on the front of each card.  This is also an option, but kids seem to REALLY like using the clothespins.

How to Use the Beginning Sound Clip Cards

Now that you have your cards and letters all prepped and organized, they are ready to use in your literacy centers.  Don’t overwhelm your kids.  Start with one word family set and the 3 letters that go with it. 

Begin with a letter activity…..by talking about the sound that is made by each letter on the clips.  Show them how the letter will create a word when placed in front of the two letters on the card. Help them sound out the word.

Next, show them how to attach the clothespin letter to the card. Tada! They made a word and should feel proud about that!

Beginning sounds clip cards featuring the CVC word fan.  Example of using the cards for letter f sound activities or beginning phoneme activities with kids in preschool and kindergartren

Check all the ideas above to work on different literacy concepts with your kids. I know that they are going to have fun. Plus….. using the clothespins will give them a bit of extra fine motor practice.

What Teachers are saying:

Thousands of teachers have used this beginning sound clip card activity. Here is what some of them have to say.

I use this resource for everything! I’ve made so many different games, activities, and learning resources out of it! Perfect, perfect, perfect!

Alexandria W.
Teacher
My students loved using this resource at their centers. They were excited especially when they made the word. It was easy to use and I did not use a lot of time to prepare.
Zonilla R.
Teacher

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