Phonemic Awareness Activities for Beginning Blends

20 Beginning Sounds Worksheets: Phonemic Awareness Activities

This set of 20 fun, Find and Color worksheets for initial blends is excellent for acquainting children orally with initial consonant blends and helping them develop the necessary phonemic awareness in preparation for more advanced blending work, involving four phonemes.

What is included in the pack?

One sheet for each of the following blends is included in the pack:

tw, sw,

sk, st, sn, sm, sp

bl, cl. fl. gl, pl, sl,

br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr

What do the worksheets involve?

Pupils are instructed to combine the two letters on each worksheet and then look for objects that start with that consonant blend. Then, these items ought to be coloured, leaving the others uncoloured.

Children can easily work on the sheets unaided once they have been instructed, although with those children with special needs, it is strongly suggested that an adult works with the child for maximum benefit.

How to use

The introduction of the concept of initial blends needs to be done thoroughly. When I work with children, especially those with a special need, I first like to teach children to blend two consonant letters. Then I work on developing the children's phonemic awareness: that being the ability to hear each consonant blend at the beginning of a word.

This is difficult for some pupils and takes a lot of practice. These worksheets can assist by first encouraging students to blend the two consonant letters and then by helping them to hear the blend at the start of a word. As often as possible, practice blending the letters in each initial blend and encourage the students to follow suit. I find that modelling is key at this stage.

Who are the initial blends Find and colour worksheets for?

Young learners

Those with a special need

Due to their non-babyish nature, they can be successfully used with older ESL/EFL pupils.

Answer keys:

Answer keys are included on each sheet, in small print.

Take a closer look at two blends with this BL and BR picture worksheet.

Focus on one beginning with this TW find-and-color worksheet.