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Home » Montessori » Sound Map: An Early Literacy Tool

Sound Map: An Early Literacy Tool

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My son is almost three and starting to ask a lot about sounds of letters and words in general. What an awesome stage and so exciting to observe him. My favorite letters are the ones that can throw you with their sounds or no sound. The letters C and K happen to be two which my son seems interested in exploring. So we’re off!

Sound Map

Today we’ve been working on a sound map. The basic idea is create a collage of words and/or images beginning with the Letters C and K. On one side of the collage we have the soft ‘SSS’ sound for C like a “circle” and “cinnamon”. On the other side we have the hard ‘Kuh’ sound for K like “kite” and “koala”. In the middle we have those images that overlap in sound like “cupcake”, “crayons” and “cup”.

Here is how we did this activity together:

Sound Map Gather a few magazines and scissors.

We sat on the floor and I told him that we were on a ‘C’ and ‘K’ hunt. He helped to identify and even cut out the images. We also have a first words box, which was a great resource for images we’d already collected for the letters “C” and “K”.

First Words BoxOur First Words Box

Sound MapI wrote a big K and C at the top of a large poster board.

Then we started sorting the images.  I steered us toward focusing on the hard ‘c’ images because that sound and words are most common. I talked about how words that begin with the letter ‘c’ that are followed by an ‘a’, ‘o’ or ‘u’ have a hard ‘c’. Then how words that start with the letter ‘c’ that are followed by an ‘i’, ‘e’ or ‘y’ have a soft ‘c’. We then moved to the hard ‘k’ and then to the soft ‘c’ images.

Sound MapI wrote the name next to each image.

Sound MapI ended with introducing sounds at the end of the word.

This activity was a very hands on and interactive literacy activity. We’ll continue working on and re-visiting this map. Then eventually we will create a “C and S” Sound map and connect it to this poster board. This will give my son a horizontal visual of the sound maps/collages.

Thank you for choosing to visit us. I hope that we inspired you today.

Warmly,
Marnie

Tagged With: Homeschool, Infant & Toddler, Preschool, Reading and Writing

About Marnie Craycroft

Marnie hails from Maine where she spent summers buried in sand and winters buried in snow. She is the daughter of a nearly four decade veteran of the public school systems. Teaching has always been a part of her life. She founded Carrots Are Orange in 2010.

Carrots Are Orange is a Montessori learning and living website for parents and teachers.

Marnie graduated from Wesleyan University in 1999 with a BA in Economics. She spent nearly a decade working in investment management. In 2006, she earned her MA in business from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.

Marnie moved to the west coast in 1999 and currently lives in Boulder with her husband and three sons. She is Montessori trained. Her work has been featured on Apartment Therapy, Buzzfeed, PBS Kids, BabyCenter, the Melissa & Doug blog, Huffington Post, and WhattoExpect.com. Besides writing, passions include running (usually after her three sons), photography, and outdoor adventures.

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