Alliteration, onomatopoeia and sound · Year 2

Writers choose words for their sound as well as their meaning. Alliteration repeats first sounds (big bears bake bread), onomatopoeia sounds like the noise (buzz, crash), sibilance repeats s sounds and assonance repeats vowel sounds.

Key facts

  • Alliteration: words close together start with the same sound: Fat frogs flip and flop. It makes a phrase memorable and fun to say.
  • Onomatopoeia: a word that sounds like the noise it describes: bang, sizzle, splash, thud, creak, quack.
  • Sibilance: repeated s and sh sounds, which can sound soft and calm or hissing and sinister: Mist passes slowly across the grass.
  • Assonance: the same vowel sound repeated in words close together: The rain came late in May.
  • Say what the sound does: it can create a mood (calm, tense, exciting), help you hear the scene, or make a line stick in your memory.

Worked examples

Example 1

Which device? The bacon sizzled in the pan.

Answer: onomatopoeia

Example 2

Which sound is repeated? Lazy lions lounge in the long grass.

Answer: l

Example 3

Which sound do you hear again and again? We each need a deep sleep.

Answer: the ee vowel sound (assonance)

Other years