Letter Sounds A to E

One picture per letter for A to E. Each cell shows the capital and small letter together, a picture, and the word underneath — A is for apple, B is for banana, C is for cat, D is for dog, E is for elephant.

Apple, banana, cat, dog, elephant: the five anchor words here are all things a three year old already knows and cares about, which is the trick — the letters are new, so nothing else on the page should be.

Children this age are not reading the labels, and that is fine. The routine to build is say-and-point: say the letter, say its sound, say the word, point at the picture. Ten seconds per cell, and the letter-sound link does the rest of the work over the following weeks. Coloring the pictures afterward is optional and entirely encouraged.