Letter Sound Charts

To read a word, a student turns each letter into its sound and blends the sounds together. When letter sounds are slow or uncertain, all of the student's attention goes to remembering each sound, and there is little left for blending or meaning. When the sounds are automatic, reading gets easier. In Scarborough's (2001) reading rope, this is the word-recognition side of reading: phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition, which become more automatic with practice. Letter naming fluency matters too. How quickly a student names letters is one of the early risk indicators that kindergarten and first-grade screeners such as DIBELS 8 measure.

Begin with sound games like I Spy so students can hear each sound in spoken words first. Then introduce two or three sounds charts at a time with the three-period lesson: show the front of the chart and say the sound (not the letter name), invite the student to show you a sound you name, and finally ask, "What sound is this?" Flip the chart over to look at the photo and read the key words together, listening for where the sound appears. Students can trace the letter with a finger while saying the sound. As more sounds become familiar, lay out the known charts and let students say the sounds as quickly as they can. This builds letter sound fluency. Once the sounds are automatic, introduce letter names with the same charts. Quick naming practice builds letter naming fluency.

Sandpaper letters are the classic Montessori way to introduce letter sounds through touch (see our article on developing letter-sound knowledge with sandpaper letters). Our Letter Sound Charts are a natural alternative for students who have passed the sensitive period for tracing or are not drawn to the sandpaper letters. They also work well on their own in classrooms that don't use sandpaper letters. The key words and photos on the back make them easy to use for quick visual and auditory games.

If you have a choice, we recommend cursive. If your school or district teaches print, choose print so the letters match what students write every day. Either way, the key words on the back are in print, the form students will read in books.

Typically ages 3 to 6 (PreK and Kindergarten) or whenever a student is ready to connect sounds to letters. They also work well for:

• First and second graders who need review
• Students in reading intervention
• English learners just learning the sounds of English
• Any student building letter sound fluency or letter naming fluency

Once students know their key sounds, they spell words with a movable alphabet (encoding before decoding), then read phonetic words with our Phonetic 3-Part Cards. When they are ready for spelling variations, move on to our Phonogram 3-Part Cards.