Learning the Alphabet

Most of the children I see, who are nine years of age and under, and have a reading disability, do not know the alphabet without making mistakes. None of them can write it in order correctly. Some of them do not even know all the names of the letters, and for some reason, which is quite interesting, a lot of them get confused with the "l,m,n,o,p" section. 

I print out an alphabet in black and white in the font of Verdana size 88.

 I add a few extra letters at the end since there is room on the paper.

I cut the letters up and laminate them.

I keep these letters in zip-lock snack bags. I usually have a few on hand in my kit with some extra letters so students can make their names.


At the beginning of each weekly lesson I ask the students to put the letters in alphabetical order. Most of them sing the alphabet song to the tune of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. Most of them have to start the song right from the beginning a number of times.

Even if children do not want to sing the song, they seem to have more success if they recite the alphabet out loud.

I also give them a packet of letters to take home and a coloured alphabet that I have laminated.

They can use this to work on their own at home, placing the black and white letters on the coloured ones, matching them up.

( The "q" on this alphabet needs a tail added to it with a black marker to make it less confusing for the students.)

One 9 year old student had considerable trouble with "l,m,n,o,p" so his homework was to write this out 5 times on 4 nights that week. When he returned for his weekly lesson he was able to make the whole alphabet.

 Ideally, students with reading disabilities would work on homework each night, but it is really important not to make students hate reading and writing even more than they do. 

So if you have a child or teenager who is struggling to read, check that they know their alphabet. If they don't know it perfectly practice it 'gently' until they do. 

Repetition is really important to the child with a reading disability. 

But remember, a child cannot learn effectively if they are anxious or bored.