The Four Components of Letter Recognition

Learning the letters of the alphabet is not as simple as one may think.  Children may be shown flashcard after flashcard but not retain the letter information.  Or perhaps a child can write all the letters of their name by rote, but cannot identify each letter.  When children are starting to learn their letters, it is important to know that there are four components of letter recognition.

-> Letter recognition – the ability to recognize the shape and size of the letter.

->  Letter naming – recognizing that the shape of the letter is associated with a letter name.

->  Letter sound knowledge – determining what sound corresponds to the shape or name of the letter.

->  Letter writing – the ability to trace or write the letter with a pen in accordance with its shape and direction.

Children need to learn the shape of a letter, what the letter’s name is, what the letter sounds like and how to write a letter.  Providing students with multisensory lessons may help to improve letter recognition.  Multisensory lessons can include visual input (looking at the shape and size of the letter), auditory input (listening to the sounds of letters, visual motor input (writing the letter) and kinesthetic input (moving like the letter).

The ABC’s of Active Learning © offers readers tons of multisensory literacy activities based on each alphabet letter.  This book, based on years of experience as school-based therapists, is written by Laurie Gombash, PT with a Master’s degree in Education and Lindsey Justice, OT.  FIND OUT MORE.

Read more about Handwriting and Literacy.

Reference:  Bara, F., & Bonneton-Botté, N. (2017). Learning Letters With the Whole Body: Visuomotor Versus Visual Teaching in Kindergarten. Perceptual and motor skills, 0031512517742284.