FEATURE ARTICLE
As Easy as ABC?
Teaching and Learning About
Letters in Early Literacy
Elizabeth L. Kaye, Mary K. Lose
How can busy teachers effectively support letter knowledge in the context of
authentic reading and writing?
We talk about children knowing letters as if it is as easy
as collecting stones. (Clay, 2014, p. 47)
L
earning letters and using that knowledge in the
context of reading and writing connected text
is more complex than it appears at first glance.
Put yourself in the place of a novice learning to read
and write. Consider, for example, this note from
Amal’s grandmother (all names are pseudonyms),
wishing her a happy birthday and hoping that she
likes her present (see Figure 1). If you are unfamiliar
with Arabic writing, where do you start to look, and
which way do you go after that? Notice the similari-
ties among several of the letters. How easily do you
distinguish one letter from another while simulta-
neously constructing an understanding of the mes-
Figure 1
Note From Amal’s Grandmother Written in Arabic
(Read Right to Left)
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The Reading Teacher   Vol. 0   No. 0   pp. 1–12
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sage? Picture the many challenges of looking at print
for the beginning literacy learner!
In reading, a student must construct meaning,
attend to language structure, and learn to differ-
entiate one letter from another, especially letters
that are nearly identical, such as u, r, n, and h. The
student must also learn to efficiently distinguish
similar-­looking words, such as but and put, out and
not, of and to, although a careful inspection shows
that some letters are merely rotated, inverted, or se-
quenced in ways that test perception.
In writing, the student must compose a message,
think about the ideas and how to record them, and
use grammatical structures that make the message
clear to the reader. At the same time, the student
must decide which letters represent the sounds in
words they have heard, from first to last, then re-
call the letter forms and write them in sequence
from left to right, observing conventional orthogra-
phy. Although many miscues in reading and writing
may occur simply as a result of lapses in attention
to meaning or grammatical structure, these errors
are also natural occurrences in the development of
letter knowledge. Without fluent control over letters
in all their detail, distinct challenges arise for young
learners as they attempt to read and write texts.
Clearly, letter knowledge is essential to the de-
velopment of an effective literacy processing sys-
tem. The authors’ understanding of this processing
Elizabeth L. Kaye is an associate professor in the
Department of Reading at Texas Woman’s University,
Denton, USA; email ekaye@twu.edu.
Mary K. Lose is a professor in the Department of Reading
and Language Arts at Oakland University, Rochester, MI,
USA; email lose@oakland.edu.
© 2018 The Authors. The Reading Teacher
published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of
doi:10.1002/trtr.1768       International Literacy Association.
 Feature Article

system in action is informed by Clay’s complex the- solve flexibly (Clay, 2015b; Doyle, 2013). Thus, as the
ory of literacy. Clay (2015b) asserted that each child child engages in this range of strategic actions, they
has unique understandings, comes to literacy by extend and improve their processing system so that
different routes, and benefits most from instruction it becomes more sophisticated and efficient. Over
that builds on their individual strengths. In addition time, as they read and write longer and more com-
to Clay’s theory, our understandings of early literacy plex texts with increasing speed, fluency, and accu-
teaching and learning, including racy, the child further advances
support for letter knowledge, are their literacy processing sys-
grounded in more than 60 com- PAUSE AND PONDER tem, always keeping meaning
bined years of experience work- at the forefront.
ing with young learners in group ■ What does it mean to know a letter? Consider how one young
and one-­to-­one settings and with How do your students demonstrate learner, Janel, made her pro-
educators who support struggling this knowledge? cessing visible as she juggled
learners in becoming independent several information sources
■ How do you efficiently track
readers and writers. students’ progress with letter
while reading:
Therefore, in this article we pre­ learning? Text: “They took Michael to
sent several facets of letter learning
■ How can you meaningfully extend the hospital.”
that affect beginning reading and
students’ letter knowledge daily?
writing. First, we provide an expla- Janel: “They looked” [pause].
nation of what is meant by the de- ■ Do you have favorite letter-learning [rereading] “They ­look­ed
velopment of a literacy processing activities that need updating with Mic­h ael.” [expressing
system. Second, we present an over- more effective practices? dissatisfac­t ion] They
view of important factors related aren’t looking him!
to young students’ emerging letter [­rereading] “They /t/ took
knowledge, including visual discrimination and the Michael to the hospital.”
role of fast visual processing. Third, we show how a
Now consider this analysis of Janel’s reading:
classroom teacher worked with individual learners in
small-­ group and whole-­ class contexts in ways that ■ First, Janel generated a meaningful and syn-
built on their unique stores of letter knowledge and tactically appropriate attempt. The words
personal connections to letters while contributing to looked and took are visually similar as well.
their self-­efficacy.
■ Second, after pausing, Janel reread: “They
Examples highlight Mr. Maldonado, a teacher of
looked Michael.” However, she self-monitored
a multi-­ age classroom composed of kindergarten
and discounted that attempt as meaningless
and first-­g rade students, whose teaching represents
and grammatically incorrect, as evidenced by
the excellence in early literacy instruction we have
her comment.
observed in so many settings. We invite readers to
■ Third, Janel’s final, successful try required her
­reflect on the benefits of using careful, sensitive ob-
to search for information in an integrated way:
servation of students’ individual literacy strengths to
She incorporated meaning, grammatical struc-
extend their letter knowledge and support the devel-
ture, attention to letter detail (the small but
opment of effective processing systems for reading
significant difference that distinguishes t from
and writing.
l), and knowledge of sound–letter correspon-
dences to self-correct her error.
An Effective Literacy In essence, Janel searched, monitored, and self-­
Processing System corrected independently to make all sources of
A child who is building an effective literacy process- information match. Letter knowledge is just one
ing system independently monitors their own read- of the essential information sources to which all
ing and writing, searches for information using the readers must attend to develop an effective litera-
meaning and grammatical structures in text, and cy processing system. Although Janel’s processing
uses print (words, letters, letter clusters, and punc- is not entirely efficient, it will become seamless
tuation) to make discoveries, notice errors, take un- over time as she reads and writes longer and more
prompted action to correct those errors, and problem complex texts with increased flexibility.

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 Feature Article
Emergence of Letter Knowledge
Letter knowledge is key to success in reading and
writing (Adams, 2011). It includes knowing the shape
or form of letters, identifying letters by name, relat-
ing sounds to letters, forming letters (52 in English),
and understanding the classification concept of “let-
ter.” Essentially, students need to learn to perceive
written language symbols (40 distinct shapes in
English) and distinguish them from other symbols
and print conventions while looking sequentially
left to right across text (Clay, 2015a). They must also
link sound sequences with letter clusters and pat-
terns as they read and write.
Young students generally recognize the names
and sounds of letters at the beginning of the alphabet
before those at the end (McBride-­Chang, 1999). They
also tend to learn the name of uppercase letters be-
fore lowercase letters, with B, A, X, and O known by
the largest percentage of 4-­year-­olds (Justice, Pence,
Bowles, & Wiggins, 2006).
Jones and Reutzel (2012) presented several fac-
tors that contribute to young students’ acquisition
of letter names and sounds:
■ The presence of the letter in the student’s own
name
■ The position of the letter in the alphabet
■ The frequency with which the letter appears
in print
■ The presence of the letter’s sound in its name
(the sound /b/ in the letter name B)
■ The period during language acquisition when
children generally learn to pronounce the
phoneme represented by a particular letter
Letter learning also involves reliably perceiving
letter forms with attention to the symbol’s direction-
al orientation (e.g., u/n, p/q, M/W) and discrimina-
tion of the minute features that distinguish visually
similar letters (e.g., l/t, n/r, v/y, C/G; Clay, 2013, 2015b;
Gibson & Levin, 1985). Writing letters may pose simi-
lar challenges for certain students (Clay, 2016). Other
students make erroneous links between letter names
and their sounds (e.g., H has the sound /a/, C has the
sound /s/; Block & Duke, 2015). Additionally, various
forms of instruction may affect letter knowledge, yet
there is “minimal information regarding how alpha-
bet instruction might most efficiently and effectively
proceed” (Piasta & Wagner, 2010, p. 23).
Presenting letters sequentially, week by week,
results in some students spending months unnec-
essarily reviewing letters they already know. Still
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other students are introduced to letters at a slow
pace, disconnected from continuous text with few
opportunities for practical application, and may for-
get the letters learned weeks ago. As Reutzel (2015)
asserted,
It turns out that teaching alphabet knowledge to young
children, something that ostensibly seems easy to
teach in the minds of many laypersons and even other
K–12 educators, is actually quite a complex, abstract
task for young children to achieve. (p. 16)
Indeed, we know far less about which particular
teaching strategies are most effective in building
­students’ letter knowledge, but we do know that con-
trived scripts and fixed instructional sequences in-
hibit letter-­learning efficiency (McKay & Teale, 2015).
Working explicitly, intentionally, and systemati-
cally requires a well-­ conceptualized instructional
plan that takes into account individual students’ ex-
isting letter knowledge and prioritizes meaningful
connections to continuous text (Kaye & Lose, 2015;
McKay & Teale, 2015; Pinnell & Fountas, 2011; Stahl,
2014). Consequently, students extend their letter
knowledge and understand the strategic use of let-
ters in reading and writing. Their letter learning is
further enhanced when teachers help students at-
tend to the distinctive and often perplexing features
of letters (Clay, 2016).
Teaching Young Learners
About Letters
Children come to letter learning by different paths;
consequently, teaching should be responsive to each
student’s current letter knowledge and make effec-
tive use of instructional time. Efficient teaching that
supports students to write and recognize new letter
forms proceeds quickly, with clear demonstrations
and precise teacher language. Instruction is memora-
ble when teachers encourage students to make con-
nections to known letters and words (e.g., Kathleen’s
K, g for go, m for mom) and use these connections to
support their reading and writing.
We propose the approach taken by Mr. Maldonado,
who represents the outstanding teachers with whom
we have worked across many years. He system-
atically tracks students’ letter learning through as-
sessments, record keeping, and anecdotal notes. He
teaches with intention, helping students link new
letter learning to existing knowledge and support-
ing them to a ­ pply this learning while reading and
writing continuous texts. He purposefully structures
 Feature Article
his day to allow ­opportunities for flexibly grouping
students with common instructional needs while
also attending to individual students’ learning. Mr.
Maldonado’s explicit teaching employs clear demon-
strations accompanied by concise language to direct
students’ attention to the essential features of letters
and to use their letter knowledge while reading and
writing.
Mr. Maldonado knows that effective teaching
calls for the astute observation of students’ literacy
strengths and weaknesses. Thus, at the beginning
of each year, he administers An Observation Survey
of Early Literacy Achievement (Clay, 2013) to each stu-
dent. He determines their control of letters, sounds,
words, and concepts about print and how they use
this knowledge in reading and writing. Across the
year, he gathers samples of students’ writing and
carefully records changes over time in each stu-
dent’s literacy progress. He tracks students’ devel-
oping ­letter knowledge (see Figure  2) and uses this
Figure 2
Letter Identification Chart, Whole Class
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information to plan for and support letter learning
throughout the day. Although Mr. Maldonado rec-
ognizes the need for all his students to build letter
knowledge so that every letter is easily identified
and rapidly differentiated, his ultimate goal is the
application of letter knowledge to reading and writ-
ing continuous texts.
When planning his lessons, Mr. Maldonado keeps
in mind five principles of effective early literacy
instruction:
1. Keep instruction brief and focused.
2. Help students make meaningful connections
between new letters they are learning and the
words or letters they already know.
3. When teaching a new letter, include move-
ments (needed to form the letter), words (a
verbal description of these movements), and
a visual model of the letter (Clay, 2016; Lyons,
2003; Pinnell & Fountas, 2009).
 Feature Article
4. Ensure that students not only learn new let-
ters but also become faster at identifying and
differentiating already-known letters.
5. Teach for the application of letter knowledge
to reading and writing connected texts.
Mr. Maldonado incorporates these principles into ev-
ery activity as he aims to build on each student’s let-
ter knowledge and minimize potential confusions.
Identifying Letters and Sorting Them
by Their Features: Fostering Rapid
Visual Discrimination
Mr. Maldonado formed a small group of students
who needed some focused instruction in letter
learning. He selected Caleb, Muhammad, Samuel,
and Lexi, who each knew 15–17 of the lowercase
letters (see Figure 3). When they sat at the table, he
gave each student a tray of colored magnetic letters
(see Figure 4). Notice that some of the letters are
different from tray to tray because they are a sub-
set of each student’s known letters. He asked the
students to quickly touch and name each letter on
their trays. As they worked, Mr. Maldonado observed
them to ensure that they identified the letters cor-
rectly and rapidly. He noted that Muhammad had
trouble remembering the letter w and jotted down a
reminder to work with him on that letter a bit more
to get it known fluently. Caleb and Samuel worked
quickly and easily with their letters, and Lexi im-
Figure 3
Letter Identification Chart, Small Group
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mediately corrected herself after mistakenly nam-
ing e as c.
Next, Mr. Maldonado asked the students to sort
their letters into two groups. This required them to
compare and contrast letter forms, considering each
letter’s features, and create categories accordingly
(e.g., letters with curves, tails, humps, etc.). When
the students finished the task, he acknowledged
how quickly they worked and invited them to share
their grouping principles.
Caleb: Well, I put the capital letters here
[pointing to the left side of his
tray] and the lowercase ones over
here [pointing to the right side
of the tray]. [The others nod in
agreement.]
Muhammad: I’ll go next. I got the stick ones here
[pointing toward the top of his tray]
and the other ones here [pointing to-
ward the bottom of the tray].
Mr. Maldonado: [acknowledging Muhammad’s ef-
fort and encouraging more speci-
ficity] I see that all the letters at
the top are made with only straight
lines, or sticks: E, F, H, I, w, y, x, X,
and T. Tell us about these [pointing
to remaining letters].
Muhammad: The y have some… [t r ace s t he
curves of c and p with his finger].
 Feature Article
Figure 4
Magnetic Letter Trays for Caleb, Lexi, Muhammad, and Samuel
Note. The color figure can be viewed in the online version of this article at http://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
Mr. Maldonado: [supporting Muhammad by offering
language to describe the feature]
Oh, are you showing us the curved
parts?
Muhammad: [briefly scanning the letters c, p, e, o,
R, P, and s] Yeah, these have curves.
A nd t he ones on top just have
straight sticks.
The lesson continued with Lexi and Samuel quickly
describing how they grouped their letters.
The naming and sorting of letters, which lasts
only one or two minutes, fosters students’ fast and
fluent visual recognition and discrimination of let-
ters. In turn, students are able to more efficiently
problem solve words in reading, especially when
font size decreases and the number of lines increas-
es in the books they read. These activities also help
students monitor letter formation in writing, making
it easier to record their messages.
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Teaching a Letter by Using a Known
Word and Guided Movement
Mr. Maldonado decided to build on the small group’s
current letter knowledge by teaching them the low-
ercase open-­t ail letter g. (He appropriately waited
to explore the printer’s g until students had more
experiences with print.) Three of the four students
could not identify g on their beginning-­of-­year as-
sessments. Although Samuel correctly named the g,
he frequently wrote it backward.
Mr. Maldonado knew the students were familiar
with the word go from work they had done in the
previous two weeks of school. In math, the whole
class contributed responses to their “How We Go to
School” graph and made a book about how they go
to school, with each student contributing a page.
Both the graph and the book were frequently revis-
ited when students independently “read around the
room,” so they were encountering go in meaningful
contexts. Because it is a high-­frequency word, go also
 Feature Article
appeared in several of the simple books these stu-
dents have read in guided reading, and they could
now locate it easily in texts. Their familiarity with go
should make g relatively easy to learn.
Mr. Maldonado began by writing the word go in
large, clear letters on a whiteboard at the table.
Mr. Maldonado: You’ve read this word before.
Students: [in unison] Go.
Mr. Maldonado: Yes, we are going to learn this first
letter of go, g. Watch while I write it.
[describing each movement while
slowly writing g] Around, up, down,
up. That’s g. Watch again. [modu-
lating his voice to match the move-
ments] Around, up, down, up. Now
write go with me.
The students used their individual dry-­ erase
boards and followed along with Mr. Maldonado, say-
ing, “Around, up, down, up,” as they wrote the letter
several times. Mr. Maldonado worked next to Samuel,
guiding his hand at first so he would not fall into the
pattern of reversing the g, as he has done previously.
The students gradually became more fluent with the
pattern of movements, and Mr. Maldonado shifted
to helping the students make a link to the letter’s
sound using their individual alphabet books.
Extending Control Over Letters and Sounds
Using the Student’s Alphabet Book
Like many effective early literacy teachers, Mr.
Maldonado created an alphabet book for every kin-
dergartner in the class and for his lower performing
first-­grade students to help consolidate their letter
knowledge. This personal alphabet book is a simple
Figure 5
Pages From a Student’s Personal Alphabet Book (Umbrella, Vikings)
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handmade book constructed of heavy paper and con-
tains the uppercase and lowercase letters that the
student fluently identifies, arranged alphabetically
(see Clay, 2016). So as not to confuse a young learner,
only known letters are entered at first, with pages left
blank for the letters to be learned next. The alphabet
book serves as a resource for the student: a record of
letters learned and the student’s personal links to cor-
responding sounds, as well as a reminder that letters
are finite; there are only 52 in the full set for English.
Likewise, the alphabet book functions as a resource
for the teacher: a record of each student’s unique jour-
ney to acquiring letter name and sound associations.
Each page of the student’s alphabet book shows
the uppercase letter first, its lowercase mate next, fol-
lowed by a single image representing the letter (see
Figure 5). The teacher enters only the letters known
by the student, so the alphabet book does not neces-
sarily begin with A. The student selects or draws the
picture whose first letter and sound represent that
student’s choice for a link to that letter. Importantly,
the depicted object is based on the student’s own ex-
perience and preferred choice, not the teacher’s or
a publisher’s, to create a meaningful, easily recalled
link for each letter in the alphabet book.
The process continues until all the letter pairs
easily identified by the student are entered in the
book and accompanied by a representative picture.
At the same time they are learning letters and links
to sounds, students are invited to read their alpha-
bet book, either starting with A or a particular let-
ter, then proceeding page by page (“H, h, hamster. I,
i, insect. J, j, jelly…”), becoming aware that letters are
sequenced in a fixed order.
After teaching the students to write the letter g,
Mr. Maldonado worked with them, using their alpha-
bet books to arrive at personally meaningful links to
letters:
 Feature Article
Mr. Maldonado: Nice work, you made the letter g,
like in go.
Lexi: I know what else has a g. It’s like
green!
Caleb: And go-cart!
Mr. Maldonado: Let’s put g in our alphabet books.
Lexi, here’s my green marker so you
can put the color green on your g
page. Caleb, you can draw a go-cart!
[turns to Muhammad and Samuel]
Let’s add g to your alphabet books
too. We can look on the g page of
our class dictionary to see what
you’d like to put in your alphabet
books.
Samuel and
Muhammad: [looking at the g page and ­naming
the pictures] Gorilla, ghost, grand-
ma, gum, guitar, guinea pig.
Samuel: I want to make a gorilla.
Muhammad: I’ll draw a guitar.
Undoubtedly, each student’s unique links were
central to their engagement in this activity and will be
key to extending their letter knowledge. Throughout
these varied letter-­learning activities, Mr. Maldonado
made wise use of lesson time by efficiently address-
ing the letter knowledge most needed next by each
student: identifying and distinguishing known let-
ters, using a known word to learn a new letter, and
making personal links to letters and sounds.
Supporting Letter Knowledge and Literacy
Processing During Reading and Writing
Identifying letters and knowing letter–sound links
are important accomplishments, but that knowledge
must also be effectively accessed and applied while
reading and writing texts. The following scenarios
show how Mr. Maldonado supported letter learning
as he helped students become independent strate-
gic readers and writers who employ a range of in-
formation sources (e.g., graphophonic, meaning, and
language structure) to solve new words, check on
themselves, and self-­correct as needed.
Expanding Letter Knowledge During Guided Reading.
Mr. Maldonado began the lesson by introducing the
book Baby Food by Joy Cowley (2012) to Lexi, Samuel,
Caleb, and Muhammad:
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Today we’re going to read Baby Food. In this story, Mom
wants the big sister to be sure that baby sister eats her
food. The big sister tries, but Baby only wants to play
with her food and make a big mess! Sister gets frus-
trated, but even so, Baby still loves her big sister.
Mr. Maldonado showed the book to each student.
Together, they looked at the cover, browsed the pag-
es, and made delightful observations about the baby
playing with her food to the chagrin of her older sis-
ter. Next, Mr. Maldonado directed the students’ at-
tention to the illustration on page 6, which shows
the baby putting her fingers in the potatoes and gra-
vy, ready to play with the broccoli next.
Notice in the following exchanges how Mr.
Maldonado invited the students to attend to initial
letters in words as they constructed the meaning
of the story. Notice also the shifts in the students’
attention—from the story’s meaning to the print to
the language structures—as they oriented them-
selves to the story and read it independently.
Mr. Maldonado: The baby squishes her food! She
thinks that’s funny! What letter
would you see first in squishes [em-
phasizing the first sound]?
All but Lexi: S.
Lexi: [responding simultaneously] C.
[then, after hearing their response]
I mean s.
Mr. Maldonado: [refrains from commenting on the
error, aware that students may con-
fuse letter names and sounds, such
as c/s] That’s right, s. Put your finger
under squishes.
The students located squishes, and the interaction
continued as they discussed all the food that Baby
is squishing:
Mr. Maldonado: [turns to page 8] And the sister is
trying to get Baby to eat. She says,
“Have some broccoli.” You say it.
[inviting rehearsal of the language
structure]
Students: [in unison] “Have some broccoli.”
Mr. Maldonado: But Baby won’t eat!
Samuel: Nope! Doesn’t want it!
Mr. Maldonado: But Sister asks so nicely. She says,
“Nice potatoes and g rav y.” She
 Feature Article
says, “Please, please, Baby,” hoping
she will eat. What letter would you
expect to see first in please?
All but Lexi: P.
Lexi: [hesitates, scanning the print, then
repeats her peers’ response] P.
[Although she associates /p/ with
the letter name P, she does not con-
sistently recognize the letter form
in text.]
Mr. Maldonado: Find please.
The students placed their fingers under please;
Lexi took a bit more time to decide but eventually
found the word. As they finished looking at the il-
lustrations, they offered their predictions about
what will happen next.
Mr. Maldonado noted the students’ responses to
the story introduction, their predictions, and their
construction of the meaning. He also noted their at-
tention to the initial letters in words (squishes and
please), which will be useful in problem-­ solving
words that are unusual or not yet known.
Mr. Maldonado then listened to each student read
the text independently, at their own pace. He en-
couraged them to problem solve and use sources of
information that may have been overlooked, includ-
ing letters, prompting with questions such as these:
“Check. Does it look right and sound right to you?”
“Did what you say make sense?” “Does the word you
said look like the one on the page?” He also focused
on Lexi’s reading in particular, aware that she has
previously shown some b/p confusions. Responding
to her substitution of bowl for plate on page 12, he
asked Lexi to check on herself, then directed her
attention to the beginning letters of a similar word
known in reading (play) so she can attend to the print
more closely, as illustrated in this exchange:
Text: “Then my baby sister puts her plate
on her head.”
Lexi: “Then my baby sister puts her bowl
on her head.”
Mr. Maldonado: Were you right? [prompting for self-­
monitoring]
Lexi: [without looking] Yes.
Mr. Maldonado: Not quite. What you said made
sense [acknowledging the mean-
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ingful substitution], but something
didn’t look right at the beginning.
Read it again and make sure it also
looks right.
Lexi: [rereads, fixing the error] “Then
my baby sister puts her plate on her
head.”
Mr. Maldonado: [highlighting the strategic action
rather than merely focusing on accu-
racy] Yes, I’m glad you looked closely
at the beginning. And this [pointing
to plate] starts like a word you know
how to read. [directs her to find
play on page 2, which Lexi had read
correctly]
Lexi: [locates play] They’re the same at
the beginning.
Mr. Maldonado: Yes. [w r ites play and plate on a
small whiteboard, cover ing the
ends of each word so that Lexi at-
tends to the beginning letters] So,
when you’re reading, be sure you
are looking closely at the words
and making everything look right.
[notes Lexi’s meaningful substitu-
tion, neglect of initial letter and
sub se quent t eac her-prompt e d
self-correction]
Noticing the bowl/plate substitution and Lexi’s
possible b/p confusion, Mr. Maldonado planned to
review his records and provide further instruction
to discriminate between the two letters as needed.
Essentially, his words and actions directed Lexi’s
attention to look carefully at the beginning of the
word, fix the error, and confirm her self-­correction.
Furthermore, his explicit teaching was brief and
focused, and it drew on something known (play) to
connect to the initial letter in a new word Lexi had
solved (plate). His final statement reminded her that
she can always use letter knowledge along with
meaning to check on herself as she reads.
Expanding Letter Knowledge During Writing. In this in-
teractive writing session, Mr. Maldonado met with the
whole class to write a story about the high school or-
chestra’s performance for the students that morning.
He intended to draw on their current understandings
of writing and scaffold them to do the following:
 Feature Article
■ Attend to the meaning of their message
■ Use their own oral language to monitor their
message
■ Write words based on their knowledge of
how words work while also accessing vari-
ous resources (word wall, links to classmates’
names)
■ Attend to conventions of print (capitalization,
punctuation)
■ Learn more about letters and letter formation
In the interaction that follows, notice how Mr.
Maldonado helped advance students’ strategic pro-
cessing and extend their control over letters:
Mr. Maldonado: Well, that was quite a perfor-
mance! I’m still hearing the music
in my head.
Student: They were really loud. I saw my
sister, she plays the cello.
Several students: What’s a cello? I liked the cym-
bals! The best was the trumpets.
And the trombones!
Mr. Maldonado: It sounds as if we’re describing
the instr uments we liked the
most. Let’s start by listing some
of our ideas [recording the stu-
dents’ observations on the chart
paper].
Bella: We should start by telling what
we saw. We watched the high
school orchestra give a concert.
Mr. Maldonado: What does everybody think? Did
you hear Bella’s suggestion? Shall
we start our story like that?
After some discussion, the class decided on this
message: “We watched the high school orchestra
perform a concert today in the school gym.”
Muhammad: 
We. I’ll write it! [comes up to the
chart paper, poised to write]
Mr. Maldonado: And since we’re starting a sen-
tence, we need to use a—
Several students: Uppercase! Uppercase W!
Muhammad: [says we slowly] We. [writes up-
percase W, adds e; prompted by
a classmate, glances at the word
wall to confirm we]
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Caleb: That’s it. I want to write the next
one. [jumps up, stands near the
chart]
Mr. Maldonado: OK, everybody. Let’s listen for the
first sound, /w/, watched [empha-
sizing the first sound].
Caleb: /w/, /w/. It starts like we! [glances
back at We on the chart paper]
Mr. Maldonado: Do we agree?
Caleb: I can write it! [hesitates]
Mr. Maldonado referred to his class letter chart
and noticed that Caleb did not yet identify the form
of w. He invited Caleb and the class to make the
movements in the air to form w.
Mr. Maldonado: Down, up, down, up, w. [hands the
marker to Caleb and provides the
magnetic letter w as a model]
Caleb: [writes the lowercase w on chart
paper in correspondence with the
teacher’s verbal directions] There!
Mr. Maldonado: I’ll write the rest. [while saying
watched slowly, finishes writing
atched]
Fatima: I heard a t at the end. Why did you
write d?
Some students: I heard that, too!
Mr. Maldonado: That’s good listening. It sounds like
we’d write it with a t, but to make
it look the way it’s spelled, we have
to use ed. [bringing forward the
orthography]
Oliver: It’s the same as looked. [referring
to a word from the previous day’s
writing]
Mr. Maldonado: That’s good noticing, Oliver. [with-
holds further comment so as not to
confuse the other students; makes a
mental note of Oliver’s observation
linking sound and orthography]
The interactive writing lesson continued until
several ideas were recorded in the story. Later, at
their desks, the students continued writing about
the orchestra’s performance, independently using
their knowledge of how letters and words work.
 Feature Article
Excited by the orchestra’s visit, Lexi chose to
write more about the experience. As Mr. Maldonado
passed by, he noticed Lexi using her personal al-
phabet book to help her write a new word. Lexi
had already written “When I am Bigr I am goin to.”
She said aloud, “Join, /j/,” then picked up her per-
sonal alphabet book. Turning to the G page, she
murmured, “Green, /g/, nope.” Then, she flipped
to the J page, named the illustration, and articu-
lated the initial sound: “Jungle, /j/.” She compared
the first sound of jungle to the first sound of join,
saying, “Jungle, /j/, join, /j/. That’s it!” Returning
to her story, Lexi wrote the j and then articulated
the whole word again to emphasize sounds in the
middle: /j-­oi-­y un/. She added the letters o, y, and n
to write joyn, a close approximation of the conven-
tional spelling. Mr. Maldonado was pleased to note
that Lexi’s alphabet book was becoming a resource
that helped her discover how to link the sounds in
words she wanted to write with their correspond-
ing letters.
The Critical Role of Letter Knowledge
and Letter Teaching
Clearly, letter learning for young students is not as
easy as one may think. It is exceedingly complex,
and even more so for particular students. Control of
letter knowledge evolves over time (not in alphabeti-
cal order or by a letter per week) and varies consider-
ably from student to student, yet it is essential to the
development of an early literacy processing system.
Keys to effectively supporting letter knowledge are
carefully observing and noting students’ current and
evolving letter knowledge and tailoring letter instruc-
tion to each student’s current control over letters. Also
essential to effective instruction is teaching letters
in isolation only as necessary and in relationship to
what a particular student needs to learn next about
letter features, formation, discrimination, and sound
correspondences.
The sensitively observant teacher, like Mr. Maldo­
nado in this article, teaches in ways that optimize let-
ter learning from the start. That instruction is focused
and brief, yet also incorporates reading and writing
authentic connected texts as part of letter learning.
Ultimately, the primary aims are to set students on a
strategic path toward becoming skilled readers and
writers and to ensure students’ and teachers’ pro-
ductive use of time and shared joy. Perhaps teach-
ing and learning about letters is not quite “as easy as
ABC,” but in the end, it is well worth the effort.
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TAKE ACTION!
1. Make a plan to assess and monitor students’ develop-
ing letter knowledge.
2. Analyze assessment data to understand how stu-
dents know letters. Do they identify letters by name,
by sound, or by a known word? Can they easily write
the letter, distinguish uppercase and lowercase
forms, and discriminate between commonly confused
letters? How do they demonstrate understanding of
letter–sound correspondences?
3. Use running records and anecdotal notes to capture
how students use multiple sources of information to
read and write connected text, and plan instruction
accordingly.
4. Organize flexible groups and arrange for one-to-one
teaching to address letter learning in isolation as
needed and in the context of reading and writing
authentic texts.
NOTE
This article was published with support from Texas Woman’s
University Libraries’ Open Access Fund.
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LI T E R AT U R E C I T E D
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MORE TO EXPLORE
■■ Baker, E.A., & Piasta, S. (2010, February 15). Alphabet
learning and early literacy with Dr. Shayne Piasta
[Podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.voiceofliteracy.
org/posts/37208
■■ Bell, D., & Jarvis, D. (2002). Letting go of “letter of the
week.” Primary Voices K–6, 11(2), 10–24.
■■ “A is for Apple: Building Letter-Recognition Fluency,” a
ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan by Jennifer Prior: http://
www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-
plans/apple-building-letter-recognition-132.html
■■ “Name Talk: Exploring Letter-Sound Knowledge in the
Primary Classroom,” a ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan
by Kathy Egawa: http://www.readwritethink.org/
classroom-resources/lesson-plans/name-talk-exploring-
letter-3.html?tab=4
■■ “Student of the Day: Create Sound/Letter Understanding
With Names,” a ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan: http://
readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/
student-create-sound-letter-58.html

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