Beginning exercises require nothing more than a teacher and students. The teacher says a word like "cat." Then she says each sound slowly and tells the children that "c" is the initial sound. This continues with other simple consonant-vowel-consonant words. This is an ongoing activity which can be expanded to include the final sound as the students gain proficiency.
Kindergarteners respond well to visual clues when learning skills. Teachers can emphasize initial and final sounds by holding up a finger as the children isolate these sounds in words. For example, the teacher says "dog." As the children say each sound, the teacher holds up an index finger for the first sound, the middle finger for the second sound and the ring finger for the final sound. Then she points to the the index finger and asks, "what was this sound?" and repeats for the final sound. Similar activities include tapping on a table for each sound or holding out an arm and touching shoulder, elbow and hand to correspond with each sound, with the shoulder and hand representing the initial and final sounds.
Kindergarten teachers use various kinds of teaching manipulatives in the classroom every day. Manipulatives are tangible objects students can touch and see, giving clarity to a concept or skill. Teachers utilize letter tiles for teaching sounds. She puts several tiles on the table then asks the student to make the word "can." The student will pick out the "c", "a" and "n" and put them in the right order as he sounds out the word. The teacher asks him to point to the tiles that represent the initial and final sounds.
When a kindergarten student demonstrates strong proficiency in identifying initial and final sounds, the teacher can introduce the more complex skill of producing these sounds. For example, the teachers asks, "Can you think of another word that begins with the same sound as "mat?" or "Think of a word that ends with the same sound as the final sound in that word." The teacher can also use pictures to teach this skill. A student will look at a row of pictures; the first picture is the prompt. For example, the students looks at a picture of a pot. The other pictures are a rug, pen and a cap and the student is asked to point to the picture that begins with the same sound as "pot."