Finish the Word shows a picture of a cat and the letters "c_t". Your child fills the gap. It is a first step into spelling, using words short enough to hold in the head.
What your child is learning
To fill the gap, a child has to break a spoken word into its sounds, find the one that is missing, and choose the letter for it. Teachers call this segmenting, and it is the heart of early spelling.
Because the gap moves, all three positions get practice. First sounds are the easiest to hear. Last sounds come next. The middle sound, which is usually a vowel, is the hardest, and that is where most children need help.
How to help
Say the word in "robot talk", one sound at a time: "c - a - t". Tap a finger for each sound. Then look at the letters on the board and ask which sound has no letter.
For middle sounds, stretch the word: "caaaat". The vowel is the part you can hold.
Short vowels are easily confused, especially e and i, and o and u. If your child picks "cot" for the cat, say both words and listen to the difference together.
Most of the words have three letters and are spelled just as they sound: cat, dog, sun, pig, bus. A few are a little longer or have a pattern to notice, such as the double letters in "bee" and "egg", or the two letters making one sound at the end of "fish" and "duck". Talk about those when they come up.
Taking it further
Write a short word on paper with a gap and let your child fill it in. Then swap roles.
There are twenty words. For HTML5 games that practise spelling, small and repeatable is exactly right at this age.