That’s confusing, isn’t it! Do you know what letter makes the /w/ sound?” (If more support is needed, provide a name or other key word children have learned for /w/, such as Waheed, a classmate’s name.)Ģ. But the letter y actually makes a /y/ sound. You hear /w/ at the beginning of the name for y. For example, if a kindergartner writes YD for wide, you can say, “I understand why you put the letter y there. When interacting with children, look out for the influence of letter names and address this explicitly. However, other research indicates that instruction in both letter names and letter sounds is best for children (Piasta, Purpura, & Wagner 2010).Īs a teacher of young children, be sure to devote at least as much attention to helping children learn the sound or sounds associated with each letter as you do the letter name. Some researchers recommend that we not teach letter names at all (e.g., McGuinness 2004). We can see why children learning letter–sound associations and trying to apply that knowledge in their reading and writing are sometimes mystified.

Rather than teaching children rules, expose them to lists of words that all follow a particular pattern. Sometimes it is /ee/, as in the letter names for b, c, d, g, p, t, v, z sometimes it is /ĕ/, as in the letter names for f, l, m, n, s, x sometimes it is /ay/, as in j and k in q it is a long u and in r it is an r-controlled a (more about r-control later). Moreover, the vowel sound is not consistent. In other letters, the letter’s sound comes second, preceded by a vowel sound, as in f, l, m, n, r, s, x. For some letters, the sound comes first and is followed by a vowel sound, as in b, c, d, g, j, k, p, q, t, v, z. The pronunciation of most letter names includes at least one sound the letter commonly represents, although the position of the letter’s sound in the letter’s name varies. And you’ll sometimes see children write a y for /w/, as in YAT for wait. Children sometimes write a w for /d/ (/d/ means the d sound: slashes around a letter denote its sound or pronunciation) because the pronunciation of the letter name for w (double-u) starts with /d/. H is one of three letters whose names, when pronounced, do not contain a sound that the letter represents. In this article, we present 10 essential understandings about English orthography and examples of how this knowledge can help teachers appropriately support preschool and primary grade children’s literacy development.

However, teachers need to know not only about letter names and letter–sound relationships in English words but also about applying this knowledge in their interactions with young children. Knowing this and other things about English orthography (the standardized alphabetic spelling system of the English language) can help teachers better support young children’s literacy development (e.g., McCutchen et al. Letter names in English can cause confusion for young children. When the teacher asks her to share what she has written, the child says “church.” Why? Because the pronunciation of the letter name for h ends with the ch sound. One child writes the letters HRH on her paper. A teacher asks kindergartners to write about what each of them did over the weekend.

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