Teaching Letters and Sounds: Effective Alphabet Instruction

“Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read you begin with A-B-C…”
 -Maria von Trapp

Maria had it right. One tried and true way to introduce children to the letters of our English alphabet is to sing the ABC song with them. Once you move beyond singing the letters, it pays to give thought to the sequence for introducing the letters. Another instructional step is to use a sound-letter chart (or strip) to pair every letter of the alphabet with a picture that represents a word, which in turn presents the letter’s sound. Finally, you'll want to teach one letter every day rather than one letter every week. 

Let's take a look at each effective practice.

The most effective sound-letter charts
For many teachers, sound-letter charts are an important part of their beginning reading instruction. Some charts, however, are not as effective as they could be. Their keywords (represented by pictures) are either too long, present an impure sound for the letter of focus, or both. The most persistent of these errors is elephant, a word often used to present the short /e/ sound. It is hard for a child (or even an adult) to hear or vocally produce a pure short /e/ sound when the e is followed by an l, as in elf or elk.  Also, elephant has three syllables. This puts many sounds (and a lot of temporal space) between the initial sound and the ending sound. If you ask a kindergarten child what is the first sound in elephant, they may say /t/, the last and most easy-to-remember sound they hear. So, elephant is not the best choice for a word meant to present the short /e/ sound. A picture of an egg is slightly better but still not the best. Its one-syllable length is helpful, but still, it’s too easy for a child (or even an adult) to mix a bit of long A sound into the initial vowel sound.

In a Google image search, I looked at over 40 alphabet sound charts in various reading programs, Teacher Pay Teacher materials, and Pinterest pins. Many of the charts were not as effective as they could be. Why? Most had elephant, a few had egg, one had ink for short /i/ (sorry, but yuck), one had olive (as in elephant, the vowel is not pure due to the l), and worst of all, four contained an orange for the short /o/ sound. Say what?

Elephants, olives, and oranges muddy the sound waters. For young children, make short vowel sounds easy to hear, and make letter associations easy to understand. Do this by using key words that are one-syllable in length and have a pure sound. You can keep apple for A, but you should replace elephant, and you might consider replacing igloo, octopus, and umbrella with these one-syllable words:
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*  Ed
*  Itch
*  Off
*  Up

My offerings aren’t original. Other programs like The Letter People and Wilson Language use these key words. Also, to present the pure /ks/ sound of X, look to a one-syllable fox or box to do the work, even though the sound for the letter X is in the final, not initial, position. X-ray is not the best choice because in X-ray, the X has three sounds /e/, /k/ and /s/. This is because we are saying the letter’s name, not its sound!

A solid sound-letter chart can be found under the “File Cabinet” tab of this website. Look in the left hand column towards the top. I created this chart using clip art. Using free clip art, you can swap in other pictures if they better suit your taste. Just make sure the represented sound is pure and in an easy-to-hear position. And I suggest the same sound-letter chart be used across your K and first grade classrooms. That way, when kids move up the grade levels or switch classrooms ,they won’t be confused by a different chart.

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​A letter-sound song
Speaking of the English alphabet, if you’re looking for a song that names the letters and gives lots of practice in all the associated sounds, I suggest singing through the alphabet (using your new and improved letter-sound chart) using the Jeopardy song. Here are lyrics to the first eight letters. Trying singing them to the Jeopardy melody:

And so on and so forth. As the children sing, make sure they point to each letter and look at each letter. You want them to associate the sound with the visual and vice versa. Also, make sure that they (and you, too) clip off any schwa sounds. You want to voice a perfectly puffed /p/ for the letter P, not say “puh.”

Practice makes perfect and permanent. If you need more guidance on how the song goes, you can download a free mp4 of me singing it. Once again, click on the File Cabinet tab of this website and look in the left hand column.. 

Also, in the file cabinet is a mp4 of me singing a tweaked version of the traditional A-B-C. In my version, the letters L, M, N, O, and P are presented individually. The down side is that the second stanza of the song doesn’t rhyme. The upside is that it is easier for young children to hear that L, M, N, O, and P are five individual letters with five individual names, not one letter named LMNOP. For some, this version might approach heresy. But some readers might find that it helps young children to quickly understand the true nature of LMNOP.

An effective letter-introduction sequence 
Sequence influences effectiveness. Here are four evidence-based elements of a powerful letter-introduction sequence. Consider them as you read through your current sequence of letter introduction. Doing so will help you determine if your sequence is effective.

Now that we know what to look for, consider the following groups of five letters. Each group is a possible sequence for introducing letters and their associated sounds and written forms to kindergarten and first grade children. 

1. m-a-s-p-t 
2. c-o-g-a-d 
3. a-m-t-s-i
4. m-t-a-s-h

Three of these letter groups come from popular core-reading programs. One comes from a group of researchers. Considering the four suggestions, is one more effective than another? Why? Which sequence comes from the researchers? Why do you think that? Which is closest to your sequence?

An effective letter-introduction pace 
Many core-reading programs have a component called Smart Start or Alphabet Review within the first three weeks of kindergarten. During this time, all the letters of the alphabet are reviewed. So far, so good. After the initial review of letters (mentioned at the start of this section), curriculums often move to introducing the name, sound, and print formation of each letter, rolling out the letters at the rate of one per week. This is where things go off the rails. There is strong evidence that a letter-a-week pace is too slow. Letters and their associated sounds need to be introduced more rapidly. A more effective instructional practice is to spend twelve to fifteen minutes introducing a letter-a-day.

That’s right, a letter-a-day! This practice is powerful because by introducing one letter each day, you allow your students to experience five, six, or even seven cycles of distributed practice in one school year. This is much greater than the one or one-and-a-half cycles of distributed practice they would get with a letter-a-week pace. Additionally, introducing small groups of letters in quick succession gives children the chance to begin blending and segmenting words as soon as possible.

In his excellent 2018 article on early literacy research, D. Ray Reutzel suggests a teaching sequence for introducing a letter-a-day. Twelve minutes is dedicated for each lesson, although I think you might need fifteen. Here’s a synopsis of the teaching sequence, adapted from Reutzel’s article.  After you read through it, reflect on how many times in one 12- to 15-minute lesson the young students see the letter M, hear its name, hear its sound, identify it, and form it in writing.

The real reasons to use these practices
Children need to learn how letters create words that carry meaning. To do this, they use letters and sounds to read and write (spell) words, and then they use those words in basic sentences. To communicate meaning through words and sentences is the real reason children need to know their letters and associated sounds.

Most core-reading programs (basal series) give a sequence of alphabet letters for introduction. Fortunately, these sequence has grown more effective over the years, possibly due to the influence of research that came from the University of Oregon, circa 1997.  Here is the well-known and often cited letter introduction sequence from Kame’enui et. al.

a m t s i f d r o g l h u c b n k v e w j p y T L M F D I N A R H G B x q z J E Q

As for letter-a-day being more effective than letter-a-week, research to support this proposition has also been around for quite some time. More than twenty years ago, researcher Dr. D. Ray Reutzel authored an article titled “Breaking the Letter-a-Week Tradition: Conveying the Alphabetic Tradition.” Reutzel has been on a roll ever since. So has noted early literacy researcher William Teale, who co-authored No More Teaching a Letter a Week in 2015. 

• MacKay, Rebecca and Teale, William. (2015). No More Teaching a Letter a Week (Not This but That). Portsmouth, NH. Heinemann,
• Jones, C.D., & Reutzel, D.R. (2012). Enhancing alphabet knowledge instruction: Research implications and practical strategies for early childhood educators. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(2), 81-89.
• Kame'enui, E. J., Simmons, D. C., Baker, S., Chard, D. J., Dickson, S. V., Gunn, B., Smith, S. B., Sprick, M., & Lin, S. J. (1997). Effective strategies for teaching beginning reading. In E. J. Kame'enui, & D. W. Carnine (Eds.), Effective Teaching Strategies That Accommodate Diverse Learners. Columbus, OH: Merrill.
• National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.
• Reutzel, D. Ray. (2018). Early literacy research: Findings primary-grade teachers will want to know. The Reading Teacher. 69(1), pp. 14-24, DOI.10.1002/trtr.1387.