ABCmouse.com’s Award-Winning Reading Games for Learning Consonant Sounds
ABCmouse’s interactive reading games can help kids practice all the phonics fundamentals that build the foundation for successful and confident readers, including types of consonant sounds, short vowel sounds, and long vowel sounds.
Best of all, our fun reading games span the entire range of early reading. From the beginning of preschool through the end of second grade, you can rely on ABCmouse to help your child practice the fundamentals of beginning consonant sounds.
Our reading games are available on Mac, PC, Android, iOS, and Amazon-powered devices so that your child can access ABCmouse, whatever the time or wherever the place.
ABCmouse.com has also won several important awards, including: • Parents’ Choice Gold Award • Mom’s Choice Awards Gold • Teachers’ Choice Award
And while awards are nice, the true measure of success is how many children using ABCmouse are learning and growing, so we asked the people who know best: their parents.
In a study surveying more than 5,000 parents who use ABCmouse with their children, 85% of those parents reported a significant positive impact on their child’s learning.
Let’s Start with Beginning Consonant Sounds
The letters of the alphabet represent sounds that make up words. In order to read, your child needs to be able to identify these sounds.
Emerging readers practice recognizing beginning consonant sounds by listening to and then reading words and stories that have beginning consonants. For many children, practicing the ability to recognize sounds in words can make a big difference in how fast they learn to read.
Designed to help your child learn consonant sounds, ABCmouse provides many fun and interactive activities to develop their literacy skills, including the following: • Cutout Puzzles • Read-Aloud Books • Consonant Sound Games • Word-Building Activities • Alphabet Sound Books
Why Choose ABCmouse?
Created by expert teachers with decades of experience in early literacy instruction, ABCmouse is not only research based and proven to be effective—it also gets children excited about learning!
ABCmouse helps your child learn consonant sounds through original songs, puzzles, art activities, and printables. ABCmouse can help to build a strong foundation toward literacy that will continue to grow with your child as he or she progresses through ABCmouse activities.
Get Your First Month FREE!
Consonants vs. Vowels
The alphabet is made up of 26 letters: 5 vowels and 21 consonants.
In English, vowels are the letters a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Consonants are all the other letters in the alphabet that are not vowels, such as b, d, g, n, r, s, and t.
Consonant sounds are made by blocking air using your teeth, tongue, or lips. For example, say the beginning consonant sound in the word pad—“puh.” Your lips come together to block air to make the sound.
ABCmouse’s early childhood and elementary curriculum contains many activities and games designed to help your child practice consonant sounds.
Activities and songs on ABCmouse, such as “The Letter B Song,” help your child learn the difference between vowel sounds and consonant sounds, which is a key skill for beginning readers.
List of Consonants and Their Sounds
Placeholder paragraph Learning consonant sounds is important to sounding out and decoding words. Once your child knows these sounds, he or she can read and decode words, starting with beginning consonant sounds.
Fourteen consonants have only one sound: B, F, H, J, K, L M, N, P, R, T, V, W, and Z.
However, seven consonants can have more than one sound: C, G, D, S, Y, and X. The letter C, for example, can sound like an S (cell) or a K (cat). The letter G can make the sounds as in goat and gel.
It’s important for beginning readers to understand that some consonants make more than one sound. ABCmouse games and videos model these sounds accurately so that your child can start to learn, read, and spell sounds. Reading aloud with ABCmouse’s books will also help your child practice all types of consonant sounds.
Types of Consonant Sounds
Say the sound for the letter P, “puh.” Your lips comes together to block air to make the sound. Consonants are classified according to how they are produced—the type of consonant sound depends on how you use your mouth, teeth, and lips and how you move air when you make the sound.
ABCmouse’s early childhood and elementary curriculum contains many activities and games designed to help your child practice proper mouth and tongue formation when sounding out beginning consonant sounds.
Activities on ABCmouse, such as “First Letter in Line,” help your child listen for and use beginning consonant sounds. The sounds are isolated and then blended to show how letters work to build sounds and words.
Places of Articulation
Articulation is the act of making clear and distinct sounds. You make the sound of the letters P, B, and N by bringing your lips together. Your lips are one place of articulation. Some other places are
• your lower lip and your upper teeth: F and V.
• the tip of your tongue on your teeth: T, D, N, S, Z, and L.
• in the back of the mouth at the palate: K and G (when G makes the sound as in go).
• in the throat: H.
ABCmouse has many activities and books that will help your child hear different beginning consonant sounds, such as “Alphabet Sounds at the Zoo.”
Manner of Articulation
Consonant sounds have different manners, or ways, of articulation. When you make the sound of the letter S, for example, you put your tongue toward your teeth. Then, you push air through the opening to make the sound.
ABCmouse provides entertaining interactions for your child to hear articulation of types of consonant sounds, such as the book series Alphabet Sounds on the Farm.
Voiced vs. Unvoiced
When speaking, you use your vocal cords to make a voiced consonant sound. An unvoiced consonant sound doesn’t need your vocal cords.
Lightly place a finger on your throat when you make a consonant sound. If you feel vibrations, the consonant is a voiced sound. Dog, go, and man start with voiced consonant sounds.
Unvoiced consonants will not make your throat vibrate. Fish, paw, and song have beginning unvoiced consonant sounds.
Your child can listen to and practice voiced and unvoiced beginning consonant sounds through ABCmouse’s variety of activities, including “Ring the Bell.”
Learning Consonant Sounds with ABCmouse
Learning consonants with ABCmouse can be engaging for children—a variety of games, songs, puzzles, and activities allow many opportunities for practice with consonant sounds.
Repetitive practice and repeated exposure is aimed at allowing children to develop automaticity, or the ability to automatically recognize words while reading.
There are many fun activities for learning consonant sounds featured in the ABCmouse curriculum, including the following: • Word Search Games • Spelling Cutout Puzzles • First Letter in Line • Ring the Bell • Alphabet Sounds on the Farm
Do you want to know more about creating an amazing learning experience for your child with ABCmouse’s reading program for kids? Visit ABCmouse.com now!