Match the Letters with Pictures – Free Printables

💘 Why We Love It

Children will use this resource to match uppercase and lowercase letters with beginning sound pictures. We love it for so many reasons!

➡️ Multimodal Practice: We love activities that engage the senses because this is how learning sticks! Kids will use their eyes, ears, and hands as they say the letter and sound, finger trace the letters, and move the puzzle pieces together.

➡️ Connects Phonemes to Graphemes: This activity allows kids to match the sound (represented by the picture) to its written form using both capital and lowercase letters. Louisa Moats (2004), in her book Speech-to-Print, states that “phoneme-grapheme relationships are the foundational building blocks of the orthographic code.”

➡️ Links Phonological Awareness and Phonics: Phonological awareness is all about the sounds, while phonics is all about the letters. We love this activity because it bridges the two together!

➡️ Engaging & Colorful: In my experience, kids just LOVE puzzles. It also helps them build their fine-motor skills which will help with pencil control and scissor skills. The puzzles are fun to put together, with bright, easy-to-recognize images for every letter.

➡️ Scaffolding: We recommend giving students a few letters at a time to practice, or if they’re ready, they can put together the entire alphabet!

➡️ Research-backed: Multiple studies have shown that letter name knowledge is among the best predictors of children’s early literacy skills (Scarborough, 1998; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). This solid foundation has been shown to lead to higher reading ability, including decoding and comprehension (Denton, West, & Walston, 2003; National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001). And that’s what reading is all about!

“Make certain that the child is secure in his knowledge of the letters of the alphabet. The alphabet is the cornerstone for all reading and spelling”

–IDA Dyslexia Handbook (2019)

🔤 About the Activity

These multi-sensory letter matching with picture worksheets are designed to help students recognize letters and match them to the beginning sounds of words. The activity should be used only AFTER explicit teaching of the letters and sounds have been taught.

The vowels are red and represent the short vowel sounds. The consonants are black. This helps kids differentiate between the two classes of sounds at an early age.

• Aa: Apple
• Bb: Bat
• Cc: Cat
• Dd: Dog
• Ee: Egg
• Ff: Fish
• Gg: Gum
• Hh: Hat
• Ii: Igloo
• Jj: Jam
• Kk: Kite
• Ll: Leaf 
• Mm: Mouse
• Nn: Nest
• Oo: Octopus
• Pp: Pig
• Qu qu: Queen*
• Rr: Ring
• Ss: Sun
• Tt: Tooth
• Uu: Umbrella
• Vv: Volcano
• Ww: Watermelon
• Xx: Fox*
• Yy: Yo-Yo
• Zz: Zebra

👉 The letters, keywords, and images match our free ABC Chart and Short Vowel Anchor Chart for classrooms and our free Phonetic Flashcards. This is a great opportunity for multiple, multi-sensory exposures using the same keywords!

ℹ️ Expert Tips & Info

• The letter x makes the /k/ + /s/ sounds, which is not found at the beginning of words in English. That’s why we teach the words fox, box, mix, and six to teach this phoneme.
• When teaching q, the letters q and u should always shown together!
• When first introducing the letter sounds and written graphemes, be sure to use a sound wall Then, when kids are completing this activity, they can reference the sound wall as a scaffold.
• The puzzles are perfect to use with pre-k, kinder, EL, or any other students working on alphabet knowledge.
• These work great for centers or independent work. Kids stay engaged and focused at the task at hand.
• Teachers love it because checking for understanding is easy! Simply look over it! You can easily use the results as a formative assessment tool.

💯 Want to read more about teaching letters and sounds? Get our 30 Best Tips for Teaching Letters and Sounds post, with links to tons of freebies.

And then visit our TPT to grab more alphabet resources like our alphabet arcs and alphabet folder.

📖 What the Research Says

To read and learn more about what research says about the importance of alphabet knowledge and best practices for teaching young learners, we recommend these expert articles:

• Denton, K., West, J., & Walston, J. (2003). Reading—Young children’s achievement and classroom experiences: Findings from the condition of education, 2003. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics
• National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the national early literacy panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.
• Scarborough, H. S. (1998). Early identification of children at risk for reading disabilities. In B. K. Shapiro, P. J. Accardo, & A. J. Capute (Eds.), Specific reading disability: A view of the spectrum (pp. 75-120). Timonium, MD: York Press.
• Whitehurst, G. J., & Lonigan, C. J. (2001). Emergent literacy: Development from prereaders to readers. In S. B. Neuman, & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 11-29). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
• Whitehurst, G. J., & Lonigan, C. J. (1998). Child development and emergent literacy. Child Development, 69, 848-872. doi:10.2307/1132208

Related Resources

• 3 Free Letter Tracing Worksheets
• C vs K – Free Anchor Chart + Worksheet
• Dyslexia and dysgraphia learning software (use code LM10 for 10% off).