Alliteration Activities for Savvy Children
Alliteration can be a great learning tool to help children with literacy.
Not only are alliteration activities a lot of fun, but they help train children’s ears to take note of initial sounds of words through the use of sound repetition, helping develop your child’s phonological awareness. Learn more of the benefits of alliteration here.
Sally Seahorse was startled by several spry schools of sardines. She suddenly felt squeamish from all the swaying and swishing.
Why did Sally Seahorse suddenly feel squeamish when startled by several spry schools of sardines?
Sally Seahorse had just scarfed down a starfruit, seafood, stir-fry for supper.
Hopefully, you survived this not-so-subtle, demonstration of alliteration. I imagine you are now anticipating a smattering of sprinkled words starting with the stirring sound /s-s-s/.
Stories for children with alliteration are not only stimulating and stylish but also strategically stacked. Alliteration is swift at calling attention to the first letter sounds of words in a sentence. This is one of the superpowers of alliteration and why activities, such as reading alliteration books, support children’s future literacy success.
Other activities, like creating sentences and stories with alliteration, can spark a lot of silliness. Even the most squirrelly kids find alliteration stupendous! But be warned, alliteration holds powerful persuasive status; as your child suddenly starts saying sensational sentences, their silver tongue may take you by surprise!
What is Alliteration?
Alliteration is a type of literary device involving the repetition of the same letter sound in two or more words in a line of text, usually based on the initial consonant sounds. A common example is “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
The big piece to remember is alliteration is sound-based, not letter-based. Many words can have different letters at the beginning but can share the same sound. For example, the /f/ sound in the word ‘fall’ sounds the same as the letters /ph/ in the word ‘phone’.
Similarly, words that share the same beginning consonant, do not always sound the same. Take the letter /c/ in the word can, which rhymes with tan and ran. Compare this with the same letter /c/ in the word circle, which sounds like the letter /s/.
Alliteration is all around us; we use it daily.
Alliteration is a Phonological Awareness Skill
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize various sound patterns of a spoken language and the capacity to separate, blend, and manipulate these sounds. These listening skills are foundational for future reading and writing.
With exposure to spoken language and over time, children begin to focus on the beginning of words and categorize them by their initial sounds. Alliteration helps children hear and identify initial letter sounds because it creates repetition of a particular sound within a sentence. Identifying and reproducing these initial sounds is the starting point of phonemic awareness.
Alliteration Examples
- The wandering wizard sat silently in the woods.
- Leon the lazy lion was lonesome.
- “Please pass the peas.”
- A gift for the grazing goose.
- “Hello, how are you my hilarious hamster?”
- The king has caught a cold.
Build your early learner’s phonological awareness: Keep scrolling down for some great alliteration activities to do with children and students that are simple, fast, and require zero prep time!
The Dynamic Duo
Help your little learner identify beginning, middle, and end sounds using visual aids like Elkonin boxes. For example, draw three boxes and use small objects or counters to represent sounds in words.
Phonemic awareness is the key to unlocking the world of reading! It’s perfectly fine if some kids need a little extra time to get the hang of it. Make learning fun by tailoring activities to their developmental level and watching them grow step by step!
Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters present a fun challenge. They not only help children with identifying the beginning sound of words but are highly demanding tasks of articulation and pronunciation, which strengthen the muscles of the mouth and tongue. And they’re not only for children; Tongue twisters are often drawn on for verbal exercises used by public speakers, actors, performers, and narrators.
7 Common Tongue Twisters:
- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
- I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
- She sells seashells by the seashore.
- If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?
- Six slippery snails slid silently seaward.
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers? If Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
- Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?
- Betty Botter had some butter, “But, “she said, “this butter’s bitter. If I bake this bitter butter, it will make my batter bitter. But a bit of better butter – that would make my batter better.”
Fun Alliteration Activities for Young Children
Of all these activities, reading books with your child takes the cake.
Ox & Owl Literacy
Bonus Activity – Reading Books Together
Reading aloud to children is by far the best preliteracy activity you can do with children.
Read-alouds are also the best opportunity to occasionally insert literacy-building strategies, taking these reading experiences a little deeper.
Reading books with your child is great for teaching reading comprehension strategies, drawing attention to rhyming words, practicing syllables, teaching vocabulary, and introducing children to the power of alliteration!
Alliteration books are great for introducing new vocabulary words to children, alongside helping hone their listening skills and sound recognition. Alliteration books engage children with interesting, often novel words, and fun-sounding word combinations.
Also, when it comes to helping children improve their writing by adding descriptive words, many teachers draw on alliteration books because they provide good examples of adjectives.
Below are some books that specifically highlight alliteration.
List of 10 Children’s Picture Books to Use for
Teaching Compound Words
- Silly Sally by Audrey Wood
- Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards
- Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut by Margaret Atwood
- Some Smug Slug by Pamela Duncan Edwards
- Pete the Cat and the Perfect Pizza Party by James Dean
- Seaside Stroll by Charles Trevino
- Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack by Doreen Cronin
- The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Janet Stevens
- Four Famished Foxes and Fosdyke by Pamela Duncan Edwards
- Old Cricket by Lisa Wheeler
Happy reading!
Spot the Sound
Have your child identify the beginning sound in his/her name.
Next, find things around the house with the same beginning sound as their name.
Try a different letter sound and find things that start with the same initial sound of the newly chosen letter.
I Spy
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Play a game of I Spy emphasizing the initial sound for each word describing the object.
Ex. I spy with my little eye, b-b-b-big and b-b-b black
Challenge: Try to use adjectives starting with the same initial letter sounds!
Adjective Jungle Animal Adventures
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Match adjectives with jungle animals to create fun combos like “Zany Zebra”, “Magical Monkey, or “Happy Hippo”.” It’s an easy and creative way to boost language skills.
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Ready to play? Get instructions for this Adjective Animal Adventures game by clicking the link. You’ll also find other Adjective Adventure ideas by exploring other themes.
Keep fun and enthusiasm at the center of parent-lead learning activities – this helps stimulate your child’s internal motivation for learning, which is worth cultivating early in every child!
Allow your child opportunities to take the lead. Children often will pair things in ways we adults would not even think to try. If you allow them the opportunity to explore with creative freedom and go along for the ride, you may be amazed at the discoveries and inspiration you uncover together.
Silly Alliteration Sentences
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Create amusing alliteration sentences with your little one. A great place to start is by starting with the initial sound of your child’s name.
Additionally, children may express their creativity further by drawing pictures or engaging in crafts inspired by the sentences generated during this activity.
Guess the Sound
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In this game, say three words that have the same initial letter sound and ask your child what sound they share. Ex. Ball, boot, and blanket = /b/ sound
You may want to start this game by emphasizing the initial letter sound in each word. Ex. b-b-ball, b-b-boot, and b-b-blanket.
When your child is ready for an additional challenge (and you are too), instead of saying three words, say a whole sentence with many words in the sentence having the same initial sound. Ask your child what sound he/she hears the most. Ex. Today my tummy wants tasty, tangy, tomatoes (the /t/ sound is prominent in this sentence).
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Hi, I’m Julie, the passionate creator of Ox & Owl Literacy. I enjoy empowering families and educators with wonderful resources to inspire fun, imaginative, and joyful learning opportunities for young kiddos. You’ll find lots of recommended books, reading resources, and creative learning activities on this site aiming to help children fall in love with language, books, reading, and the transformational power of stories.