What you need:
• three pennies
• paper
• pencil

What to do:
1. On the paper, draw a "sound box" that looks like this:

2. Give your child three pennies to use as markers.

3. Say the word sat. Stretch the sounds as you say the word:sssaaat. Drag a marker to each box as you switch from one sound to the next. Ask your child to repeat after you.

4. Then have your child write a letter in each box for each sound in the word. For example, say "What is the first sound in sat? Write the letter that makes the /s/ sound." Your child will then write the letter s in the first box. Continue with the rest of the sounds and letters in the word.

5. Create a clean Sound Box and continue this activity with any three-letter short vowel word, such as man, sit, let, hot, sun, etc.

Learning Benefits:
• draws attention to sounds in words (phonemic awareness)
• develops letter-sound correspondence
• provides practice writing letters