Beginning Sounds A to Z Worksheets

What you get

This version is set to make 26 questions on three pages, one for each letter, so every letter appears exactly once. Each question shows three pictures and asks which one starts with the letter. The questions are shuffled each time, so a new sheet is never the same as the last one. If your child needs more practice on certain letters, use the letter buttons to choose only those and raise the number of questions.

Alphabet sounds at a glance

Here are the sounds and the pictures that the worksheets use for each letter. It is also a handy reference when you are not sure how a letter is pronounced in US phonics.

The tricky letters

• C and K both make the sound /k/ in the pictures here (cat and kite). When the generator chooses wrong answers, it never offers a K picture as a wrong answer for C, or the other way round, so your child is never marked wrong for a correct answer.
• X and Z are treated the same way, because the xylophone starts with /z/. Most other words with x have it at the end, like box and fox.
• Q says /kw/ because it is almost always followed by u, as in quilt.
• Vowels have more than one sound. Most pictures here use the short sounds (apple, egg, orange, umbrella), but ice cream starts with a long i and owl starts with the /ow/ sound.

How to use a whole-alphabet worksheet

Twenty-six questions are too many for one sitting for most young children. Print the sheet, but do five to ten questions at a time over several days and tick off the ones you have finished. Say each picture name aloud first ("dog"), stretch the first sound ("d-d-dog"), and only then look for the letter or picture.

What to do next

Once your child has the alphabet sounds, move on to missing letters to practice the order of the alphabet, or CVC words to start blending sounds into words. To practice writing the letters themselves, try letter formation worksheets.