Beginning Sounds: Matching Words That Start the Same

🎯 What You'll Learn

You will learn to match words that start with the same sound.

🌟 Let's Start

Bola and her brother Bayo are playing a game. Bola says "ball" and Bayo says "book." Both words start with the same sound — /b/! Their names start with /b/ too. Can you think of another word that starts with /b/?

📚 New Concept

Words that start with the same beginning sound are like a family. Let us find some sound families:

• /m/ family: mango, market, mother, money, mat
• /s/ family: school, sun, sister, sand, soap
• /k/ family: car, cup, corn, cassava, cook
• /t/ family: table, teacher, tree, ten, talk

To check if two words start the same, say them both slowly. Listen to the first sound of each word. If the first sounds match, they belong to the same sound family!

Do these start the same?

• fish and fan — YES! Both start with /f/.
• hat and pen — NO! Hat starts with /h/ and pen starts with /p/.
• dog and door — YES! Both start with /d/.

🎮 Let's Practice

1. Do cat and cup start with the same sound?
2. Which word starts with the same sound as rain: red or ball?
3. Name a word that starts with the same sound as house.

Click to see answers

1. YES — both cat and cup start with the /k/ sound.
2. Red starts with the same sound as rain. Both start with /r/.
3. Any word starting with /h/ is correct, such as: hand, happy, hen, hill, hot.

💡 Remember

Words that start with the same sound belong to the same sound family. Say two words slowly and compare their first sounds.