This resource includes 104 object and animal cards, with four cards for each letter of the alphabet. A full list of included objects and animals is provided for reference.

Please note: The grapheme ‘x’ is marked with a star to indicate that its most common sound appears at the end of words (e.g. fox, box, six, fax).

Purpose

These cards are designed to:

• Support the introduction of grapheme–phoneme correspondences
• Develop phonemic awareness, particularly initial sound isolation
• Provide a hands-on and engaging way to explore sounds in words

Activity Ideas

• When introducing a new grapheme and its corresponding phoneme, show object and animal cards that match the target sound while clearly emphasising the initial sound (e.g. “llllog, lllleaf”)
• Find all pictures that begin with the target sound
• Sort cards into “target sound” and “not target sound”
• Use for oral phonemic awareness games and discussions